Could Be Worse
by roguetimechild
Summary: Katniss is shocked when she's reaped into the Hunger Games alongside her hunting partner, Gale.
1. Your Tributes

Yeah, I know the premise isn't very creative, but hopefully I go somewhere remotely interesting with the concept.

I plan to still have Peeta involved in the story, but to a much lesser degree.

Enjoy!

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><p>The stage floor creaks beneath my feet. True District 12 quality. I wonder if it could break. Maybe if I jumped, I could fall through, die, and not have to go through what I just signed up for because I didn't want Prim to go through it either. And if I died now, they might just call her back up onstage and she'd have to go through it anyway.<p>

I take my place beside Effie, an official tribute in the 74th Hunger Games.

She grins at me, and I scowl back. Her smile falters at my expression, and she turns back to the crowd.

"That was riveting!" she exclaims. "Let's hear it for your tribute, Katniss Everdeen!"

And no one applauds.

I look back at Prim. Gale is restraining her. Her body is racked with sobs and his hand is on her shoulders, trying hopelessly to console her.

"Now for the boys!" I faintly here Effie say, disappointment evident in the fact that no one is nearly as perky as she is. I mean, how could they be.

I hold my breath and examine the crowd of somber boys. And through all my trauma I've yet to deal with, an important thought crosses my mind as a sort of prayer:

_Don't let it be Gale._

Gale. My best friend since forever . . . well, not the literal forever. But he's my only best friend now, and the only one I've ever had, unless you count Prim.

My gaze sweep across the crowd some more, examining all the people not wanting to experience what I'm feeling right now. There's a short redhead biting his nails. A tall, stocky boy clenching his fists. A blonde staring straight ahead. I recognize him. He prevented the starvation of my family at one point by thrusting bread in my general direction. Owing him so much, I'm racked with guilt when a new thought comes to me:

_Let it be him. Not Gale._

Effie makes a show of swooping her hand around in the bowl of tribute names. It's like she's trying to suffocate me, because I'm not going to exhale until she reads out whatever name she picks.

She buries her hand deep into the bowl and chooses one within the far reaches that one wouldn't think to draw out of, as if removing it from the reaches of safety. She opens the slip delicately. I can hear it crinkle. The crowd has gone quiet except for Prim, still crying, but to her credit, trying to calm herself down in respect of those still awaiting their fate.

Effie puts her face up to the microphone and announces in a bell-clear voice the only name that could devastate me as much as Prim's did. And maybe it devastates me more, because Prim I can replace, and him I can't.

"Gale Hawthorne."

I don't exhale. I wait, thinking that if I continue holding my breath, that the name will change. Because as long as wait, there could be a new name chosen.

But it doesn't. My breath comes out in a rush, and I probably look like a gasping fish to the cameras.

I watch Gale. His hand slowly leaves Prim's shoulder and clenches into a fist as his face hardens.

"Come up here, boy," Effie beckons.

Gale doesn't move.

I hear a scoff of irritation from behind me. The embarrassing drunk, Haymitch, stumbles over and swipes the microphone out from under Effie's nose.

"Come _up _her, son!" he rushes him. "We don't have all day!"

A peacekeeper advances on Gale. He glares at it viciously, but starts walking up to the platform. Prim goes berserk as he foes.

I want to yell at him to turn around. _Go back to the woods_, I want to scream. As if he'd make it without getting a bullet in the back. But I'm desperate now.

But he doesn't turn around. He makes his way all the way up to the platform and stands right beside me.

"No, honey, stand on my other side," Effie orders in what in her mind probably passes as kindly.

Gale just glares at her. He doesn't move.

"Come on, boy," she demands.

He doesn't move. He doesn't blink.

He's close enough for me to whisper to him without being overheard. "Gale, be careful."

"Why?" he hisses back. "How are they going to punish me?"

I don't give him the list. In his mind, we're already living out the worst case scenario we could be put through at the hands of the Capitol. I think we are, too, but they could make it worse.

They could separate us.

Whatever I'm about to go through, I want to go through it with him. When his name was called, of course I was crushed. But there was a glimmer of positivity that popped up in the back of my mind,

At least I didn't have to go through this without him

"Don't let them get to you_," _I advise him.

"Too late."

Effie is trying the wrench the microphone from Haymitch's grasp. She gives up and just speaks near it, giving up on trying to call Gale over.

"Are there any volunteers?"

I scan the crowd for Gale's family. They are mostly too young to volunteer for his place except for Rory. He's twelve, but he knows Gale would string him up somehow if he even makes a move toward the stage. It kind of defeated the concept of not wanting him to get hurt, but it probably made a lot of sense in Gale's mind. To avoid Gale's consequences, Rory stays put. That, or he's too scared. Either way, no one speaks up, and once again, the most prominent sound is Prim's reenergized sobbing. I want to comfort her so badly.

"Ladies and gentlemen, your District Twelve tributes!" Effies brandishes her arm in our direction.

No one applauds, and I'm hit with a sense patriotism for my poor district.

"You ready for this, Catnip?" Gale asks quietly.

I don't answer, because he already knows full well I'm not. Neither of us is. I'm doubtful either of us will ever be. I am not ready to be put into a situation where I'm demanded to kill my best friend.


	2. Visitors

Thanks for the feedback!

No rights to The Hunger Games.

I lurve you.

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><p>I 'm thrust into a room in the Justice Building and Gale is thrust into another. Already, I'm having trouble handling being away from him and not knowing exactly what's happening to him.<p>

But there's a certain immediacy about what's happening to me now. I sit in the room I've been thrown in, small and confining, and wait for visitors. That's the protocol for the Games, or so I'm told. So I wait for my mom and sister and to come and say their goodbyes, because I don't know anyone else who would want to.

The door opens for the first time to let in a visitors and someone is thrown in roughly. I'm about to go off on the Peacekeeper for handling a little girl like Prim so roughly. But on second glance I realize, it's not Prim.

It's the blonde boy I noticed in the crowd. The one who threw me bread a few years back.

The doors slam behind him. For a moment he just gazes at me loftily and I stare back, bemused.

"Has your sister been here yet?" he asks.

I shake my head.

"Good." He approaches me urgently. "She doesn't hunt, does she? Not like you do?"

I shake my head again.

"Listen," he bends down so he's at my eye level. "When she gets here, tell her to come to my family's bakery for food. She can trade it or eat it or whatever she has to do. I hear bread goes for a lot at the Seam."

"Wh—Huh?" I stammer, utterly confused.

"My name is Peeta Mellark. You know me from school. And from . . ." he trails off, and I know he remembers the time he helped save my life as clearly as I do. "You can trust me, can't you?"

I think for a moment, then, hesitantly, I nod.

"Good," he sighs, relieved. "Give this message to your sister, okay? You remember where my family's bakery is?"

I nod again.

"Every day at noon, tell her to look for a bag in the shrubs near the back entrance."

"Okay," I breathe, bewildered.

"Your family will not starve, Katniss," he assures me. "Not if I can do something about it."

With that, he gets up to leave, even before our time is up.

"Hey!" I call after him.

He looks back over his shoulder.

"Why are you doing this for Prim?" I ask.

He looks away, back at the exit.

"It's not for Prim," he says, and I don't if he would've been able to leave me with a more confusing message.

He leaves, and I catch a glimpse of a Peacekeeper gripping onto him to usher him out before the door closes.

My next visitors are less surprising: My mother and Prim. Prim leaps straight into my arms and I wonder whether or not she's stopped crying this whole time.

"It's okay, it's okay," I whisper soothingly.

"No, no it isn't," she sobs into my shoulder.

"Sure it is," I try to smile. "Buck up, Prim. It could be worse."

"How?" she croaks as she leans away from me.

"It could be you going in there," I remind her.

She knows that, but somehow, that doesn't comfort her.

"Listen," I begin, wiping tears off of her damp face. "You know the bakery run by the Mellarks?"

She shakes her head.

"Prim, you have to find it. It's your food source now. With Gale and me leaving, we won't be able to hunt for you. Every day at noon, look in some shrubs for a bag. It's not stealing. One of them is giving it to us."

"Why?" she asks, as confused as I was.

"Don't question a gift, Prim," I advise her, pushing blonde hairs out of her face. "You be good to mom, okay?"

It sounds like a goodbye, so Prim slams back into me and I wrap my arms around her. I repeat that it's okay some more, then gently unlatch her from me to go speak with my mother.

"Take care of her," I tell her.

"Of course." She notes my doubtful expression. "Katniss . . . Katniss, of course I will!"

"Okay," I say. Then I go up to hug her.

"Are you going to try to come back?" she wonders into my ear.

I think for a moment. "I don't know," I decide to say.

Coming back suggests that I kill Gale. I'm never going to be prepared to do that.

"Could you try?"

I don't answer and pull away from the hug.

"Time's up!" a gruff voice informs us, and Prim and my mom are pulled out of the room despite Prim's shrieks of disapproval that make the silence that follows the closing of the doors more prominent.

I sit back down on the couch and wait for the Peacekeepers to drag me away. I don't expect any more goodbyes. I've already gotten more than I expected.

But the door opens again, and someone more unexpected than Peeta comes in.

"_Gale_?" I gasp.

He closes the door quietly behind him. "We don't have much time."

"Gale, you shouldn't be here."

"I'm aware," he says, approaching me quickly, rummaging in his pocket.

He must have snuck in as the Peacekeepers were guiding my family out. Despite the imminent danger, I stand up and hug him tightly. He puts he free arm around my back, but continues rummaging.

I pull away only because of our short amount of time. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I wanted to see you," he informs me. "And I want to give you something."

He finds what he was digging in his pocket for and holds it out to me.

It's a pin. It's a dull, gold-color and its image is a mockingjay, a failed experimental bird that the Capitol cooked up back in the day, almost enclosed in a circle.

"For a token," he explains as he holds it out to me. "You can where it in the arena."

"Where'd you get it?"

"Madge, a while back. It's yours now."

Instead of thanking him, I ask, "Why?"

"It's obvious we're friends," he explains. "The Capitol probably will try to do something about that. But this is something from me I want you to keep on during this process, okay? Up until you come home."

"As if I'm going home," I scoff.

"You are," he assures me shortly.

And that's when I realize the deeper meaning behind the gift. It's part of him. It's so I remember him.

After he dies.

I promptly slap the pin out of hand. It clatters to the ground.

"No!" I exclaim.

"Katniss . . ."

"No! Stop it!"

"Katniss, just in case," he tries to explain. He's realized I've figured it out. "I mean, there's only _one _winner, right?"

"So you're not even going to try?" I cry.

"Sure, I guess," he replies unconvincingly, "but people who try end up dead, too."

As I'm considering this, a Peacekeeper barges in.

"Hey! You get out of here!" he barks at Gale.

I'm struck with the urge to cling on to him. I'm suddenly clawing in to his back, willing him not to leave. He clings back, but a man is prying him off of me. Someone collides with Gale's shoulder and he grunts in pain.

I let go and shriek at the Peacekeeper, enraged.

But he's able to force Gale away from me, and the door closes behind them with a sense of finality.

I'm left breathing heavily in the room, truly out of unexpected visitors now. My gaze travels down to the floor where the pin is glinting up at me.

I take it up and pin it to the front of me dress. It's as Gale said. A figurative piece of him in his absence.

But only times like now, temporary absence. As if I'm going to let Gale die in the arena.

I almost convince myself of it.


	3. Savagery

Even if there were more visitors or waiting to see me, the Peacekeepers don't let me see them. They're too upset about the Gale-sneaking-out thing. They grab me by the neck of my dress and drag me out the door.

I end up in a sleek, luxurious vehicle that's to take us to the Capitol. I'm relieved when they shove Gale in as well. If government authority does plan to separate us, they're not doing it yet.

We end up in a car of the vehicle loaded with food. Gale and I stand awkwardly by the entrance, not knowing if we're expected to eat something or not. Effie Trinket, the audacious woman who reaped us into the situation, sits at the table, perkily nibbling at a buttered roll.

"Please, sit!" she calls, and I wonder if all of her sentences end in exclamation points.

Gale, characteristically, doesn't move, and I do the same.

Effie rolls her eyes. "Wonderful. I get the stubborn district this year."

"Let's just go," I whisper to Gale.

He doesn't respond before Effie cuts in. "You two sure do whisper a lot. I don't like it."

"I don't like your hairdo," Gale retorts, "but I deal with it."

I nudge him in the ribs. He chuckles.

"Just eat," Effie sighs. "I mean, look at the two of you. It looks like you don't do a lot of it."

"Tell that to your home district," I spit, but she doesn't reply.

I'd like to continue standing and stiffly and with my arms across my chest, but the food is rather inviting. I take a step toward the table and Gale grabs at my arm.

"Not eating now won't win us any battles," I tell him over my shoulder.

He stares at me heavily, but eventually lets go of my arm and follows me to the table. Effie smiles warmly as we approach and I want to puke.

I take a seat near the corner of the table and Gale sits down beside me. I reach for food first, opting for a particularly succulent-looking piece of stake. I grab it with my fingers and Effie makes a choking sound. Gale and I look up at her, several chairs away, puzzled.

"What are you _doing_?" Effie croaks.

"Getting food?"

"Use the _fork_, you savage!"

I move my hand away and pick up the fork with it. I'm not used to forks. They don't usually pick up the things you want them to. Fingers are considerably more reliable. Nevertheless, I grasp it into a fist and jab it into the meat. Effie still isn't pleased, it appears, and her face falls into her hands.

Gale shrugs and just reaches for a piece of meat with his hands. I keep up trying to use the fork, stabbing more things with it, even things I'm probably not supposed to use forks for. True savagery.

"So, what's the plan?" Gale asks me.

We're talking with our mouths full, and it seems Effie is about to have a fit. I shrug. "I don't know. Survival seems a good a plan as any."

"But there's a kink in that plan," Gale notes.

"What?"

"Only one of us can."

I scowl at him. "Gale, you know full well I don't want to talk about this."

"Not talking about it won't change the fact that—"

"Yeah, well, talking about it won't either," I interrupt.

"You know what?" Effie chimes in. "I think I liked you two better when you whispered and didn't eat."

"You should try it," Gale suggests.

"Gale!" I exclaim.

"Are these our hopeful champions?" we hear from behind us.

We turn in our chairs to see Haymitch, looking disinterested, unimpressed, and obviously intoxicated, especially considering the bottle of alcohol he's clutching in his hand. Effie's face falls, as of the presence of all of u in close proximity has disintegrated her faith in classiness.

"Kinda skinny, aren't they?" he points out before reaching right over Gale's head for a roll, then sitting right beside him.

"You're our mentor, right?" Gale asks cautiously.

"In the flesh," he grins sardonically, his cheeks stuffed with dough.

"You're supposed to teach us how to win?" I ask off of Gale's comment.

"Supposedly," he shrugs.

"Well . . . how?" Gale questions further.

Haymitch starts chewing slower. He eyeballs Gale suspiciously. "Are you going to try?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Gale frowns.

His gaze flips between the two of us. "You guys are friends, aren't you? Besties? I heard you pulled a stunt back in the Justice Building."

Gale shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "So?"

"If you want to win," Haymitch starts, "whilst maintaining a shred of dignity, don't pull things like that. You can be friends, but I hope you to realize this is a _killing _competition. The friend thing is fabulous. People will probably love it. Hearts will probably break left and right for you. Before one or both of you _dies._"

Neither Gale nor I respond.

"That's what I thought," Haymitch rolls his eyes. "You know what could get your mind off of that?" He shoves his bottle into Gale's hands, grabs a handful of rolls, and stands up again. He probably wants to find a replacement.

"Martyrdom doesn't win the Hunger Games, kiddies," Haymitch explains as he leaves. "Savagery does. You both might as well get used to the idea of living without the other one."

Gale's gaze suddenly flips down to my dress, particularly his pin that I've pinned there. His expression doesn't change, but his words suggest that something changed within him.

"Looks like someone already has."

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><p>Yes, it is kind of unfair for Gale to be upset about Katniss wearing the pin he gave her.<p>

Thought I'd let you know I'm aware, although I might touch upon it next chapter.

Maybe.

Thanks for reviews!


	4. Escape Plans

Thanks for the reviews, lovelies! So glad to find Galeniss shippers out there.

No rights to The Hunger Games.

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><p>Gale suddenly loses his appetite. He begins trudging away from the table off to wherever else it was possible to go in the extravagant vehicle.<p>

"Gale!" I call after him. "Hey!"

I stand up and trot after him, grabbing his shoulder to spin him around once I reach him.

"What's your problem?" I question accusingly. "You wanted me to wear the pin, so I wore it."

"Yeah, I know," he admitted. "It's just getting to me."

"What is?" I ask, the anger melting from my face at his defeated expression. "What's wrong?"

"The steak was too rare," he replied, beginning to turn around.

"_Gale_."

He pauses, then turns back to face me.

"What do you think is wrong, Katniss?" he snaps. "Does imminent death ring a bell at all?"

"And does it take your pin to remind you of that?"

"No, it's just . . ." he sighs deeply. "I don't know. You expressed that it symbolized you accepting my death, and then you put it on. It kind of makes you think."

"I didn't say that's what it meant to me," I point out.

"You didn't have to."

He knew me too well.

"Look," I began, "I'm wearing it because I like it and I'm grateful. I'm not accepting your death. Because if you die in these games," I pointed a finger at his chest, "I will _kill _you, you hear me?"

Gale chuckled lightly and looked down at my feet. "You're definitely capable."

"Yes. Yes, I am."

"But I'll kill you if you die in there, too, alright?" Gale made clear.

Of course, neither of us would make do on that. Most of the reason was that such an act wasn't possible unless some sort of anomaly happened in regard to space and/or time. Another aspect was that it might never be able to bring ourselves to kill the other.

I decide to bring up this concern.

"Hey, Gale," I start, "if it was down to the two of us, would you kill me?"

"No," he answers without hesitation.

"What if I asked you to?"

"No."

"What if I was in pain? To put me out of my misery?"

He thought about this one for a moment, but came to the same conclusion. "No. There'd still be a chance you'd survive, and then the Capitol could patch you back up. Would you kill me?"

"I don't think so," I reply.

"You don't think so."

I realize how terrible that sounded. "No. No, I wouldn't kill you."

He raises an eyebrow and stuffs his hands in his pockets.

"I wouldn't!"

"To put me out of my misery?"

I shake my head immediately in attempt to redeem myself, but my voice still cracks when I try to respond. "No."

He cocks his head to the side.

"Well . . . how miserable are you, hypothetically?"

"_Thanks_!"

"Well, I don't want to watch you suffer!" I defend myself. "What if you're being burned alive or something? I could just shoot you in the head or something instead of watching your skin boil."

"Have you thought a lot about this?" Gale asks curiously.

Admittedly, I had, but somehow, it seemed wise to mentioned it, so I kept quiet about it.

But this is Gale, so he knew I had just by looking at me. "But you don't _want_ to kill me, right?"

"Of course not, Gale. Who do you think I am?"

"You don't want me to die and I don't want you to die," he listed. "Neither of these options is very plausible in the arena."

"Dually noted."

"So let's not go into the arena," he stated simply.

"Gee, Gale, you're a genius," I drone sarcastically.

"I'm serious," he continues. "Let's escape. Let's leave."

"We're going about five hundred miles per hour or something," I point out.

"Maybe not now," he says quietly so Effie, still eating and glancing up at us occasionally, doesn't overhear, "but soon. We could run away, back to District 12. Maybe just the next District over. Let's just leave."

"You don't think others haven't tried?" I cry in disbelief. "You're being imbecilic!"

"It's worth a try," he pushes, putting his hands on my arms. "If they catch us, we're probably just thrown into the arena anyway."

"But . . ."

"Katniss, please, I . . ." he trails off.

"What?" I press.

He drops his hands, then his eyes. When he looks back at me again, words accompany his gaze. "I can't watch you die."

"Yes, you can," I say blatantly. "Millions of others can. They enjoy it."

"Katniss," he says simply, but forcefully.

I sigh. "Fine," I concede. "But, please, if you have any sense at all, not yet. Wait until we're not in motion."

He smiles a small smile at me. "Good." He moves as if he's about to hug me, but changes his mind and drops his arms when he sees me stiffen as I expect it. As he brushes past me, I regret that decision. I take a moment to hope that I didn't hurt his feelings or anything.

Gale sits down back at the table, still a good distance from Effie. I start to think maybe it wasn't a good idea discussing escape plans right in front of her. It might be paranoia, but I feel she's eyeballing us a little more suspiciously now then she was before. Gale picks up a fresh roll and beckons me over.

"Come on, Catnip," he encourages.

I scurry over to the chair beside him where a hunk of my old meat still waits. It suddenly seems tantalizing and I dig into it, abandoning the fork. If Gale and I are escaping soon, I'd like to make the most of the meals that luxury has to offer.

I eat and I wait for escape opportunity.

Gale does the same.


	5. Preparation

If I mess up some details, like the order in which events happened in the book or the time periods each event took, sorry.

I appreciate your reviews! (Unless you are a small child named Tracy. I keed, I keed.)

No rights to The Hunger Games.

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><p>Gale and I arrive at the Capitol. It's big and complicated and I'm not sure how people keep track of this many buildings or people or colors. Outrageous pinks and greens cloud my vision. These people aren't entirely real, that much is obvious. Tan and tanner give way to purple and pinker. It starts to give me a headache.<p>

We're traversing from the vehicle to the Capitol building where the tributes are supposed to be holed up for the next few days. I don't think it'll be easy to exit that building, unless we're also entering the arena.

Gale notices this, too. "Should we break for it now?" he whispers, averting his gaze from the fans.

I look around. We're surrounded by raving Capitol citizens and being escorted by Peacekeepers who I assume are not nearly as nice as the ones native to our district. "No. Not yet."

Gale nods, trusting me.

We make our way cooperatively into the Capitol building. I could fit forty of my house just into its lobby.

Then, Gale and I are separated.

"Where am I going?" I demand to know as we're led different directions.

"Hair and make-up," someone answers. "You're to be presented as tribute soon."

"Are you saying I'm not already gorgeous?" I drone. I mean it as a complete joke, but with the uncomfortable silence that follows, I'm a little offended.

I meet my make-up team, a colorful gang who discuss colors too specifically and facial structure too meticulously.

"Your face is so sallow," one of the team, Portia, notes, grabbing my face by the cheeks and swiveling my head around.

I don't reply. What are you supposed to say to that?

"Cinna has his work cut out for him," another one, a guy this time, comments. "Have you ever heard of foundation, honey?"

"No," I say blandly.

He rolls his eyes. "Why am I not surprised?"

The next hour or so is torturous.

I listen to what must be just about every one of my physical flaws picked apart by the colorful crew, and they try to remedy each thing they notice. My eyebrows are edited and facial blemishes are covered up with something that feels sticky and wispy at the same time.

"Is this necessary?" I frown as something powdery comes toward my face.

"It's extremely recommended."

"I assume this is our tribute?" a new voice says.

"Cinna!" someone exclaims.

The crew and I turn our necks. Gold-eyeliner characterizes the new arrival, but his wardrobe is rather bland compared to the other Capitol citizens I've met.

Cinna approaches me, examines me. "Hello, Katniss," he greets as he scrutinizes. "I'm your stylist."

"And I'm your doll," I grumble resentfully.

He smiles good-naturedly. "Don't worry, Katniss, I'm not trying to embarrass you. I want you to feel comfortable in whatever you wear."

"I'm comfortable in hunting gear," I tell him.

He strokes his chin thoughtfully. "Hunting is illegal in District 12, is it not?"

I bite my lip. I am utterly stupid, a complete idiot.

Then again, what could these people do to me that they weren't planning to do already?

"Let's focus on the mining thing, shall we?" Cinna decides. "But that rebellion in you, that fire, we can still work with it. It's dangerous, and I recommend you tone it down, but we can work with it."

"What are you planning to do?" I ask curiously. I'm surprised by how nice this man seems to be. He's considering me, looking at me like a person, not a Capitol pawn.

He looks at me, a sort of mischievous glint in his eye. "I'm going to set you on fire."

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><p>The fire isn't real. I don't know what it is, but Cinna assures me that it won't hurt me, or Gale for that matter. We've been designed to match, like tributes usually are.<p>

When I walk out of my prepping room, Gale is in the hallway. I was concerned he might think I look ridiculous in a sleek, black, gaudy suit. Then I realize, it's much more ridiculous on a guy.

He sighs heavily at my sudden fit of laughter upon seeing him.

"Go ahead, let it out," he shrugs.

"Oh my—Gale, I'm so sorry," I say as I try to regain my composure. "The Capitol is truly barbaric."

"And I was just about to say that you look beautiful," he crosses his arms.

I stop laughing abruptly. "Huh?"

Gale's face falters. "Well . . . it's just that—"

"You two look _fabulous_!" Effie calls to us. She's trotting up to us on her uncomfortably high heels. "Oh, I'm so excited! I just saw District 4's outfits. Believe me, you outshine them."

"Uh, thanks," I say.

Haymitch appears beside her. He looks between the two of us. "You two are regular hotties," he drawls. "Now, listen, I've been socializing a bit. It's big news that the two of you are good friends. The populace is eating it up."

"Why would they care?" I ask.

"Have you ever seen the Hunger Games, girly?" Haymitch cocks his head to the side.

It's a dumb question. Of course I have.

"Twenty-four kids are put into arena, one comes out emotionally scarred and victorious. Some people get more attention than others. They get gifts when people like them, and often, at least for some amount of time, they don't die. There are usually a couple of young lovers, whether they're faking or not, but we can work the two-gender friendship two. Yeah, people would like that. They'll want you to live, want you to realize you're madly in love each other within the course of the games, and they'll want to send you gifts to make sure that happens."

"We're not . . . we're not together like that," I point out.

"Yes, I know," Haymitch rolls his eyes, "but I'm willing to expect that people will want that desperately from the two of you. It's freaking romantic, it is, the whole days-left-to-live, I'm-forced-to-kill-you dynamic. Milk that desire, kids. Pretend you are in love, if you think that'll help."

Gale and I glance at each other and don't respond with words or facial expressions.

"Now get out there and give me a good show," Haymitch encourages. He slaps both of us on the shoulder and trudges off, Effie trotting after him.

Cinna comes out of the room I was just in, and someone I assume is Gale's stylist comes out of another room.

"Ready?" Cinna asks me.

"Uh-uh," I shake my head.

Cinna gives me a sympathetic look and squeezes my shoulders reassuringly. He then leads me by the small of my back towards the end of the hallway where the chariots are waiting with Gale right behind us.

"The fire won't hurt you," Cinna assures as he loads us onto the chariot. "Have fun."

I really hope he's being sardonic.

Gale is on the left of the chariot, with me on the right. There are eleven tribute chariots in front of us waiting to be viewed by the adoring crowd, and I wonder if any of those people have had their lives as shaken up as mine today.

Gale, seeing my distress, reaches down and squeezes my hand reassuringly.

"It's okay," he says. "This is one of the easier parts."

"That doesn't comfort me," I tell him as I look down at our entwined hands.

"Well, we're escaping soon, right?" he encourages.

"Maybe. I'm . . . I'm not so sure that'll work."

Gale shrugs. "What have we got to lose?"

I think of Prim.

I think of him.

And I don't answer.


	6. Escape Attempt

Happy Easter, dearies! Shoutout to Jesus for the really nice thing he did for us.

No rights to The Hunger Games.

* * *

><p>Gale and I will probably never settle into our apartment. It's too lush, too exaggerated, too luxurious. I want to climb under a rock and sleep there rather than under the sheets of a bed big enough for the entire Hawthorne family to sleep comfortably.<p>

But we shrug it off and eat dinner with Effie and Haymitch at the equally ridiculous dining room table with the equally ridiculous quantity of food. That part we don't mind so much.

"That was a fabulous display today," Effie prattled animatedly, referring to Gale and I's fiery debut.

"I guess," I shrug.

"You are the talk of the Capitol," Effie went on. "You already have so many fans."

I think back to our reveal, what was going through my mind or whatever. I wasn't thinking much. Then, the flames came up and my thoughts were mostly, _I hope I don't die._

I didn't think of anything. I examined the other tributes in their pitiful costumes. I was suddenly very thankful that I had Cinna and came to the conclusion that Gale hadn't look half bad. A few tributes stood out. The intimidating District 1 and 2 were exuding pride that made me want to puke. They probably volunteered for this, and not for the well-being of their family members.

There was a small, timid-looking girl who was beyond adorable. Disctrict 11, I think. And I striking redhead with the face of a fox who seemed nervous out of her wits. She should try completely shutting off her emotions.

It had worked so well for me. The most notable emotion I felt recently was relief when the ceremony was over.

I'd also seen President Snow there. He exuded more menace then all the tributes combined. He could stop these Games. He could help save me and Gale. He could've helped saved my sister.

Instead, he stands on his balcony and scares the will out of us.

_What's wrong with him_? I remember thinking.

"Okay," I say listlessly to whatever it was Effie had said.

Effie is clearly disheartened by my lack of enthusiasm. "Use the fork," she barks resentfully.

I roll my eyes and pick up the superfluous utensil. Gale chuckles at my obedience.

"What about you, Gale?" I tease. "How'd you feel about being a fashion statement?"

"Fabulous," he replies, and I chortle.

"You think this is funny," Effie reprimands us, "but it'd a big deal."

"Agreeing with this rainbow physically pains me," Haymitch contributes, "but she's right. Now people notice you. They know who you are, and you've already made quite a statement. This earns you some chance of surviving."

"How is people liking our relationship going to get us a better chance of survival?"

"Sponsors, honey," he replies simply. "They don't send stuff if they don't like you."

That's not good. I can count on one hand the number of people that like me. My survival odds abruptly dwindle.

Unless we get out, of course.

"Gale?" I say suddenly.

"Huh?" he asks, confused.

"May I talk to you privately for a moment?" I request.

He sees the look I'm giving him and knows I'm up to something, hinting something deeper.

"Of course," he concedes.

We rise from the table, ignoring the suspicious looks from Effie and Haymitch. When we got into the hallway, I closed the door quietly and slowly behind me as to not to raise suspicion with eager quickness.

When the door clicked close, I spun to face Gale and spoke in an urgent voice.

"Let's go," I demand.

"Now?" he whispers.

"Yes," I hiss.

"Why now?"

"I can't deal with this for another second."

"You're strong," he differs. "Yes, you can."

"I don't want to," I say stubbornly. I grab him by the forearm. "Let's _go_."

"We don't have any supplies," he points out.

I don't feel like listening to reason and I don't answer him. We jog down the corridor hand-in-hand, and despite the recent romantic implication recently, it isn't awkward. We don't want to stay here long enough to follow that plan through. We want to go home and avoid the subject whilst killing furry, delicious things.

I've kept track of the route to the bottom floor. There's some sort of forcefield around most of the perimeter of the building, but there are, of course, a few openings, one being the main entrance.

At that entrance, two guards stand, surprisingly alert for the time of night. I start to slow down, but Gale drags me forward. He has a plan.

The guards straighten up suspiciously as we approach, but Gale doesn't slow as he releases my hand. Instead he rushes up to one of them, hooks his heel into the crook his leg, and the guard stumbles forward. I follow suit with the guard on my side. It's not much cause for injury, but it's a slight diversion. We pull the door open and dart through them, our underfed, lithe frames giving us the advantage to elude their grasp.

We run closely together as we escape the clutches of the building. We pass by a large pool that seems decorative, because I didn't see anyone in it when we arrived. I don't see what's so decorative about water, but I don't let it bother me much.

We outrun the guards easily. They don't shoot, because tributes are precious. They aren't meant to die yet.

We weave our way through the architectural wonders of the Capitol, making our way for the edge, perhaps escape to District 1.

Soon enough, we've escape the bustling crowd. We must be at the outskirts. We run a little faster.

I led freedom and hope overwhelm for a few stupid moments.

Until we hit the marble wall.

The fencing around District 12 is flimsy, and not electrically charged as the warning signs promised. I could crawl under them any day of the week. But the Capitol is well-funded. They can erect twenty-foot marble walls to safeguard their citizens. But who would even try escaping such a blissfully happy place?

Tributes, of course.

We were stupid to think extreme precaution hadn't been taken to ensure the safety of the tributes.

I start yelling wildy, kicking and punching at the wall. Gale just stares at it, lifts a hand to it as thought hoping it's actually incorporeal and we could just fall right through to the other side.

But his touch is met with cold, unforgiving marble.

I feel like leaning against the wall and wallowing. I almost begin doing just that when I terrible thought occurs to me.

If this wall was made to trap tributes, someone was probably waiting nearby to round them up.

It might just be paranoia, but I think I hear a voice yell from somewhere, "_There they are_!"


	7. Recreation

No rights to The Hunger Games.

* * *

><p>Eventually, Gale and I manage to pull ourselves together. We take off running again back toward the bustling Capitol crowd. (What could they possibly be doing out this time of night?)<p>

We push through the masses, stopping to apologize to every once in a while.

"Where are we going?" I think to ask along the away.

Gale admits he doesn't know, but we continue running anyway.

We wind back through more large buildings. We catch sight of some guards and dart off in another direction before they spot us. A few mere second later, we see more of them. We turn off in another direction and continue on.

"Gale, we can't just run forever," I point out breathlessly.

"Do you have a better idea?" he demands.

"No, but . . ." I trail off.

We keep running.

We don't keep evading guards so smoothly. Eventually, we're spotting and we're on the wrong end of a chase. They still don't shoot. We're still too valuable. We're able to do enough winding and zigzagging to lose them.

We run for what feels like hours, and by the time we're buckling, panting with our hands on our knees, signs of daytime are showing. We make it by that massive decorative pool and collapse into some shrubs beside it just as the sun breaks past the horizon, painting the sky orange.

"Now, what?" Gale pants once he gathers his voice.

"Did you see how many guards we almost ran into?" I ask. "How long do you think we can keep this up?"

Gale runs a hand through is hair, then sighs dejectedly.

"We're doomed, aren't we?" he admits.

I leave the statement there to simmer and settle into our minds. As it sinks in, I become increasing frantic. Of course, I keep it down, both for Gale and because Gale's here. I guess his presence calms me down.

"Now, what?" I repeat.

Gale looks around, as if the answer is somewhere in the immediate surroundings. His gaze lands on the pool of shiny water.

"You know," he begins, "people swim for fun around here."

" . . . so?"

"When was the last time you swam for fun?"

There are some surprisingly vivid memories of my father a long time ago, when I was only a child.

"A while."

Gale pushes himself off the ground and, with what seemed like renewed vigor, strolls over to the pool and starts unlacing his boots.

I spin around to face him, still sitting. "What are you doing?"

"It's pretty likely that we're going to get caught and dragged back to the torture chamber," he explains as his first boot comes off. "I'd like to have some fun before that happens."

I scoff at him. "Are you serious?"

"Lighten up," he encourages, starting on his other boot. Once he's taken off his boots, jacket, and finally, his shirt, he stands up straight and beckons me over. "Come on, Catnip!"

"Are you supposed to be swimming in here?" I wonder aloud.

"I don't see any signs telling us otherwise," he gestures openly to the lack of reprimanding. "Now get over here."

He's insane, I decide, but I stand anyway. With a doubtful look that I make sure he catches, I shed my jacket and boots.

"Now, _come on_," he encourages, as if I'm a child.

I walk slowly over to him, standing precariously beside the water.

"Now, jump in," he instructs.

"You first!" I exclaim.

"Fine," he shrugs all too innocently, and about a second later, he grabs me by the arms and is taking me down with him.

I squeal as I hit the water, and under its density, I can barely flail madly enough to kick him.

"Jerk!" I sputter as we resurface.

He just laughs, but I'm laughing too, and it seems impossible that I could under these circumstances. I guess Gale can get me to do seemingly impossible things.

I slap some water at him, and he grimaces as if he caught in his mouth. In retaliation, he spits water all over me.

We're idiots for how loudly we're laughing. My hair sticks around my neck and I make a mental note to put my hair in a braid under the unlikely instance that I would end up in a similar situation.

Gale eventually ducks under the water, opting to take advantage of the opportunity to just swim around.

As the sun gets higher, the pool grows warmer. Gale pauses, reaches out of the pool, and hides our in some shrubs. I'm about to ask why when I hear some foreboding, heavy footsteps. He slides back into the water as I suck in a breath. We quietly duck into the water as guards run past.

My heart hammers in my ears. I've accepted our imminent capture, but that doesn't make mean I'm looking forward to it.

I can't hear the footsteps from under the water, so it's mutually decided that Gale and I are to stay under as long as we can to be safe. When the protests of my lungs become too great to ignore, I precariously lift my nose above the water. Beside me, Gale lifts his head and lifts his eyes above the edge of the pool.

"They're gone," he observes, and I decide it safe to gasp for air. He does likewise.

I wipe some of the water from my face with my as-soaking t-shirt, which is as effective as one would expect it to be.

We breathe heavily, clutching to the pool wall, relaxing our frayed nerves.

When suddenly, a hand grabs Gale by the arm.

"Hey!" I yell as he's dragged out of the pool. The edge of the pool scratches up the side of his shirtless abdomen, staining it with blood.

Soon after, another hand grabs me by the neck of my shirt and pull me out of the pool. For the most past, my shirt protects my body from the same harm Gale's went through. I manage to look over and see a guard fishing our boots and clothes out of the shrubs.

Well, that was fun while it lasted.

"You two are in so much trouble," my guard growls in my ear, although he's speaking loudly enough for both of us to hear.

I'm about to shoot back something cold and laced with attitude, but his next sentence stops me cold.

"Wait until President Snow gets ahold of you."


	8. Advisory

No rights to The Hunger Games

* * *

><p>We are not taken to President Snow just yet. We're thrown into our apartment where Effie and Haymitch are waiting. Effie looks frantic and Haymitch looks terribly unimpressed, which is probably his version of disappointment.<p>

"You are to stay here," a guard barks at us. "You leave, we—"

"You _what_?" I press. For some reason, I feel like making him admit that we have copious leverage will be a small victory.

"Well, let's see," he begins, "I could start shooting off bits. How long do you think you'll survive in the arena without one of your legs?"

That shuts me up.

He closes the door and leaves me with Gale, Effie, and Haymitch. No one has to say it. I understand that Gale and I are under lock down. There's supposed to be training tomorrow. I doubt we'll be allowed to attend.

"What have you done?" Effie reprimands, waggling her powdery finger at us.

"That we don't want to die," Gale supplies.

"You are not on the right track, son," Haymitch tells him. "How'd the marble wall look?"

"Almost impenetrable," Gale grumbles.

"What happens now?" I ask sheepishly.

"You're probably going to be given a cryptic warning and special attention," Haymitch replies. Upon my raised eyebrows, he adds, "Don't think that's being let off easy, sweetheart. Special attention in the Hunger Games by President Snow? He probably wants you dead already."

"Is he going to come to speak with us?" I ask.

"It's likely."

"What should we do?" I ask quietly.

Haymitch regards me in what almost looks like sympathy. He walks up to me, looking me straight in the face when he answers. "You look him straight in the eye and you listen. Any wit and attitude that will seem like a good idea at the time, you shove it back. This is not the time to fight back. Not yet."

"Then _when_?" I demand, my voice cracking. "When we're in the arena and he's safe in front of his television?"

"You won't win any battles with attitude," he says calmly, "except a battle of wits. And let me tell you, Snow's probably got you beat there, too."

"What are we supposed to say?" asks Gale.

"What, am I the Snow expert now?" Haymitch exclaims, throwing his arms open.

"_Please_, help us," I plead.

Haymitch sighs heavily, and I really do think he cares about all of us, he just doesn't want us to know it. It's probably a dignity thing, or upholding some kind of reputation thing.

My suspicions are confirmed when he starts advising. "Don't say anything, if you can avoid it, especially not about each other. He can find a way to exploit it. These are his games, after all.

"If he starts listing off punishments, don't worry about them. Remember, the Games will probably be worse. Keep that in mind at all times: It _could be worse_."

"That's a negative lifestyle, isn't it?" Gale muses.

"It's a positive one, actually," Haymitch says. "It's reminding you in that the Games are worse than whatever you're going through now. Hopefully."

"And in the Games," Gale asks, "what do we think then?"

Haymitch's gaze flips over to Gale, and I'm sure it's sympathy I notice in the look. "You could be dead."

But I think differently. In the Games, _it could be worse _could still work for me. It could be Prim in my place. And even if I was bleeding on the ground, taking my final breaths, I could still think _it could be worse_. It could be Prim there. It could be _Gale _there instead.

It always, always, _always _could be worse.

But, like Haymitch added, almost as an afterthought: _Hopefully_.

"What would Snow's punishments for escape probably be?" Gale asks.

Haymitch shrugs. "Could be a lot of things. He could do nothing, but let the threat of something hang over you for the rest of your time here. He could, as that charming guard suggested, start taking off limbs. He could kill _me_?"

"_You_?" Gale frowns.

"Yeah, I'm the mentor," Haymitch says. "Thanks for putting me in the line of fire, kiddies."

"We're sorry," I apologize. "We didn't mean to put you in danger."

"I don't mind much," he waves a hand to shush me. He clearly doesn't value his own life as much as a person should.

"Let me tell you what _I _think," Effie begins, strutting up to our group.

"No one cares," Haymitch exclaims.

Effie ignores him. "I think whatever you get from Snow or Seneca or whoever comes by, you deserve it. The audacity! Willing fleeing our hospitality? We're making life so comfortable for you and you've become such celebrities!"

"Hm," Gale purses his lips. "Did my parents teach me _nothing_ about gratefulness?"

Effie is not impressed with the sarcasm. "It looks like your parents taught you nothing about _respect _either."

"I guess my dad didn't squeeze that lesson in before he exploded," Gale says provokingly.

Effie lips become a thin line.

"Call off the dogs, you two," Haymitch encouraged. "We've all had long nights. Why don't we all squeeze in some morning slumber?"

"Do we have time?" I inquire. "Will Snow or Seneca be here soon?"

My question was answeredy a knock on the door.

"Excuse me," a foreboding voice calls. "May I come in?"

Haymitch sighs as he gazes wistfully at the door.

"Showtime, kiddies."


	9. Apprehension

You reviewers are a lovely bunch of people. Thanks for reading!

No rights to The Hunger Games.

* * *

><p>Effie is the one to swallow the lump her throat and scurry to the door. I don't know whether or not to value that.<p>

"Hello, President Snow," she sputters once the door is jar, "and Gamemaker Crane."

Snow and Seneca step into the room. One of them, Seneca, has a ridiculous beard, but I find myself appreciating it anyway.

"Hello, patrons and tribute of District Twelve," President Snow greets, his voice long and drawn out and deep.

Effie give a delicate wave of her fingers. Haymitch nods. He seems reluctant to speak, probably under the assumption that he might say something to get him in trouble.

"If it's okay," Snow says, "I'd like to speak with the tributes for a moment."

"Of course," Effie accepts cordially. She steps out of the room with Haymitch trailing behind her. She shoots Gale and me a half sympathetic, half patronizing look as he leaves, closing the door behind him.

"Should we sit?" Seneca offers.

"I'm fine, thanks," I respond a tad coldly.

"I insist," Snow presses.

I have a sudden preference for Seneca's presence, even though he would likely be the one that could arrange my murder in the Games.

We do as Snow suggests. Gale and I sit on one couch and Snow and Seneca on another across from it so we're facing each other.

"Now," Snow begins, clasping his hands together, "I'm sure you two know a contribution to my visit."

Gale and I don't answer, not out of disrespect, but because we don't know what we could say that wouldn't possibly get our feet chopped off.

"You ran off," Snow contributes graciously.

"Yes," I decide it's safe to say. "Yes, yes we did."

"Why?" he asks.

There's a heavy silence for several moments as Gale and I run through safe answers in our minds.

"Because . . ." Gale begins hesitantly, and he opts for pretty much the same thing he'd said when Haymitch was curious, "because I don't want to die."

Snow seems to consider this thoughtfully, tightening and loosening his clasped hands in front of his face. Seneca mostly just looks at him, as if he's the one supplying the topic and responses for the day. He's there as an observer, or a learner, maybe a second, but not nearly as important, authority figure.

"And you don't want Miss Everdeen to die either, am I right?" Snow asks.

Gale nods.

Snow nods too to show he understands. "Boy, do you have any idea why we hold these Games?"

The Capitol version of the reason has been drilled into us since we were children.

"As punishment for our actions in the time before the Districts," Gale says. "A winner is awarded to exhibit the Capitol's . . ." his voice flattens on the final words because it's so obscene. ". . . generosity."

"_Mercy _is more the word I'd use," Snow says.

I literally bite my tongue.

"However," Snow continues, "our mercy only extends so far."

Huh. Who would've thought?

"This attempt to humiliate the Capitol and its hospitality will not go unpunished," Snow says, glancing between the both of us. Seneca watches curiously.

"What'll it be then?" Gale presses.

Snow straightens in his seat. "You will be able to attend your training session this afternoon," he begins, "and Seneca will be there to examine." Seneca appears mildly taken aback. Apparently, this is news to him. "However, you are not permitted to attend the trials."

It doesn't sound like much, but it raises a curious question.

"How will we be scored?" I wonder aloud.

Snow is nicely prepared for the inquiry. "You will still be scored, based on Seneca's impressions of you thus far and what he gathers from you from training."

Seneca gazes off somewhere faraway.

"Impressions of us?" Gale says.

Snow nods once and it doesn't answer many of my questions, but somehow, I'm more intimidated.

"Do you understand, Seneca?" Snow turns toward him.

Seneca nods vigorously, as if disagreeing is a dangerous option.

"Splendid. That's not your only punishment, of course."

The thought, _don't separate us_, springs to mind.

"You will not be permitted to attend the interviews," he reveals.

I'm actually relieved. Public appearances are not my strong suit. It doubt it's Gale's either. He'd probably try to get the unimpressionable audience to rally right then and there before being shot for such outright, stupid, pointless rebellion. But Snow's, and probably Haymitch's, view of this would likely be that I have less of a chance to get to public to adore Gale and I, and therefore, less of a chance of getting sponsors.

"Okay," Gale nods tightly. "Anything else?"

Yeah, talking definitely isn't Gale's strong suit. That's not something you ask when one is listing off repercussion for you actions. It sounds so much like a challenge that I wait to see if Snow is about to offer to chop off one of our limbs.

"That's all," she nods curtly, "for now." He turns to Seneca. "I've given you some responsibilities today, haven't I, Seneca?" The angle of his head lowers as he looks meaningfully at him. "I do trust that you will handle these duties . . . responsibly."

Something just short of fear flickers behind Seneca's eyes. For a split second, his glance shifts my way and we share an apprehensive look. I start to think that maybe Seneca is just as much in trouble as the rest of us are.


	10. Pragmatism

No rights to The Hunger Games

* * *

><p>Haymitch leans against the dining table of the apartment as Gale and I pace back and forth explain Snow's visit.<p>

"Did he say anything else?" he asks.

"No, those were our only punishments," Gale answers.

"_Only _punishments?" Haymitch repeats, his eyebrows shooting up. "Do you have any idea what a big deal this is?"

"Seneca gives us low scores because we're troublesome. So what?" Gale says. "Our scores don't affect how well we perform in the Games."

"You know about the sponsor system, don't you?" Haymitch asks.

Gale and I nod. "Yeah, our district sends us stuff when we're in trouble."

"It's much more complex than that, boy!" Haymitch waved his hand in the air as if trying to wave away Gale's passiveness. "When you're in trouble, sponsors can send you items to help you out. Not just from your district, but from any district. Do you honestly believe our poor, little District 12 can afford to send you whatever they want whenever they want? These scores could have helped you win the support of other Districts. Snow might have just signed off your _death sentence_."

"I think you're overreacting," I tell him.

"Excuse me!" he lifts a finger in my direction. "One of the people in this room actually has one these Games. Guess which?" When no one answers, he continues. "Banning you from the interviews has the same effect on your popularity. When you don't show up and everyone else acts like the likable suckers they are, they get the supports, while you two are met with confusion and suspicion for your absence."

"I thought you said are whole friend dynamic earned us some support," Gale recalled.

"It did," Haymitch affirmed, "but absence from the interviews is a bigger deal than you two knowing each other.

"Another thing," he continues, "since you two have showed rebellious tendencies, Snow is probably out to get you."

"He's already throwing us to a likely death," Gale points out.

"It just became a lot more likely," Haymitch says. "Be on your best behavior until you get into these Games." Haymitch glances at the both of us, then rolls his eyes. "Who am I kidding?" he mutters to himself.

"So what do we do now?" I ask him, ignoring the jab.

"Training and _your trials_ start up this afternoon," Haymitch says. "Think up what you're going to do."

"Isn't that what you're supposed to advise us on?" I ask.

"You want me to hold your hand, too?" Haymitch taunts, but he advises anyway. "If you want to learn the ropes, and then go to station you think might be useful rather than the stuff you're already experienced in. What would that be for you two kiddies?"

Gale answers, "Well, for Katniss, it's a bow and arrow."

I shoot him a sharp look. For some reason, I feel like this is classified information meant only for the both of us.

"For me, it's traps and snares and things," Gale adds.

"We can definitely work with that," Haymitch nods. "If you want new skills, go to stations about herbs and plants and things. If you want a chance to up your score and intimidate the competitors and try a make sure your weapon of choice is there in the Games, you try your hand at archery and whichever station tells you how to use rope and leaves as a killing machine. Got it?"

Gale and I nod.

"Good," Haymitch approves. "Now stay here and don't do anything I wouldn't do, assuming I'm sober."

Haymitch leaves the room. I'm not entirely sure what he does when he's not with us and comes back still sober. He doesn't strike me as the type to have hobbies. I don't think about it much. There are more pressing matters.

"So what are we going to do?" I turn to Gale. "Show our skills and or attain new ones?"

"We don't have to think about that, Katniss," Gale says.

I furrow my brow. "Huh?"

He turns to face me back. "We can still get out."

I sigh heavily, putting my hands on my hips and shooting him a look I hope illustrates how outrageous he is. He reads my expression and walks up to me, as if that will better help make his point.

"I'm serious, Katniss," he continues. "We failed one time. So what? We can still escape."

I glare at him more harshly, but he keeps going.

"So there's a marble wall around this place. So what? The car that brought us here, it had to have come through a whole or something, right? If we can find it, we can slip through it and head for something other district. We can—"

"Stop it, Gale," I say.

"Katniss, seriously, we could—"

"_Stop it!_" I screech, and this time he does, the something in my voice quieting him.

Now, I am the one ranting, a bit of voice-cracking desperation thrown into my speech. "Stop trying to find a way out of this, Gale. If it was possible to escape, someone a bit more intelligent than us probably would have done it already. Face it! It looks we're about to step foot into the Hunger Games, unless we get killed before then or something, and you won't seem to accept it. These things _happen_, Gale. No matter how much you slam your fist against walls of marble, or scream about how unfair the Capitol is while we're hunting, that doesn't change the fact that we're here, now, and while we are, we should think about how one of us is going to get out of here alive.

"And . . . yeah."

That stammer drained a good portion of the intensity out of my speech. I probably should have left off with a furrowed brow and heavy breathing left over by my feelings, but Effie hasn't taught me about how to speak correctly yet. Without the interviews, I note, she probably doesn't have to anymore.

Gale's staring at me, expression inscrutable. I decide to pick up my speech again. I reach for the mockingjay pinned to my shirt.

"You have me this to remember you by," I remind him. "You've already accepted that one of us is going to die before, so stop entertaining your escape fantasies and get yourself in gear, because if you die first, I'll kill you."

And I ruin it again.

"Well, I won't kill you, obviously, but I'd probably be pretty upset with you."

"You'd hold a grudge on my corpse?" he frowns.

"Of course not. I'm just . . . try not to die, okay, Gale?" I plead dejectedly.

"Yeah," he nods unconvincingly.

I'm about to request something more reassuring when the door cracks open. Effie's head pokes in.

"Hello, children," she greets merrily. "Time to get dressed for training!"

* * *

><p>Aaand end of chapter.<p>

May I ask you fine citizens something?

After this story ends, assuming I don't die or give up or lose my hands before I can finish, should I make a sequel, like go into Catching Fire with the circumstances this story leaves off of? I know it may seem far off now, but that decision might I effect where I go with the story ending. Keep it mind, I may diregard your opinion entirely, but I do appreciate it:)

Thanks for reading/reviewing!

And also, may I say, I want this story to be in the actual Games already. However, I feel like it would be a little bit of a letdown if I started the next chapter with "And then we started the Games."


	11. Training

No rights to The Hunger Games.

* * *

><p>"This is torture," Gale grumbles.<p>

We've been in the training room for almost forty-five minutes, Seneca pacing an elevated platform that views the whole area, eyeing us. It's uncomfortable, and I've yet to leave Gale's side. It's established that one fourth of our fellow tributes could probably punch and kick us to death within the course of a few minutes.

"Not yet," I tell him, "but it might be soon if we don't listen to these people."

"So the other tributes are going to torture us for not listening to—"

"Don't even pretend you didn't understand my cleverness," I warn.

Gale chortles, and, after looking through information about plants and herbs, we make our way to a station about knot-tying. I figure, since Gale is into snares and stuff, that rope is the next best thing. It entraps people, right?

Gale and I gather close to the woman walking us through how to use the ropes in a way that, if one were to step into the loop, it would snatch them up by the ankle.

"And then what?" Gale mutters low enough for only me to here.

"I shoot it with an arrow," I offer.

"What if I don't have you with me?" he asks.

I shrug.

"I should make sure there are snares in the arena," Gale says thoughtfully.

"How do you plan on pulling that off?" I wonder aloud.

Gale clears his throat, than begins speaking a tad too loudly. "Will there be any other sorts of traps in the arena?"

"That sort of depends," the instructor replies. "The weapon choice differs every year. What did you have in mind?"

I notice Gale's eyes flip up to Seneca's watchful gaze as he continues. "Well, snares and traps are my preference."

I realize what he's doing and play along, bringing my voice's volume up to a level at which Seneca, the man in control of these Games a peg lower than Snow is, hears. "Yes, that's true," I agree. "He's very good with traps and snares."

I notice Gale suppressing a chuckle, probably at my acting skills. I resist elbowing him in the rib.

"Oh, you two are the tributes who are best friends, aren't you?" the woman seems to recall.

I ignore the statement. "Do you think they'll be snares for him to use during the Games? Or at least some metal to twist together?" I ask. "He could kill plenty of tributes with them, though the deaths would probably be kind of . . . graphic."

Of course, that isn't a downside at all. It's a hook for the viewers. The bloodier the deaths, the better. I glance up at Seneca, and he seems thoughtful. I am fairly certain that we've just earned Gale his traps in the Games.

A smaller part of me thinks, we just ordered in murder weapons.

"Nice going, Catnip," Gale mutters as the woman starts up her instruction again. The other tributes listening to the woman, turned off by our exaggerated volume, are shooting us glares, not entirely sure what just happened, but sure they don't like it. I suppose that they shouldn't.

"You should show Seneca what you can do," I suggest, "to get Seneca to up your score."

"Like what? Tie a knot before his eyes?"

I lean back from the gathering and scan the room. Bombs, traps, those were Gale's sort of thing. He was strong, sure. Stronger than the average guy, even, especially for his skinny build. However, from the looks of the Cato guy I saw earlier, he wouldn't stand out testing his strength.

"I'm not sure," I admit.

Gale has been scanning the room, too, his eyes falling on different objects. Knives, wires, herbs, back to the ropes. None of them are his strong suit.

"I think I can pull something together," he says. "You go show what you can do with the bow and arrow targets."

He rises and heads in a different direction. It feels strange not having him next to me, but I brush it off and head for the bow and arrow station. It's not like I can have a friend breathing down my neck this whole time. A small, dark girl with curly brown hair is occupying it. Her arms are skinny and small, the bow seeming large and clunky in her grip. She fires off an arrow as I approach, and it strikes the human-shaped target in the thigh.

"Shoot," she grumbles.

"Hey, it wasn't that bad," I encourage before I think to stop myself.

Big, brown eyes gaze up at me. "Yeah, right," she scoffs. "If I hit someone in the thigh, like_ that_ girl for instance," she gestures with the bow to a brunette chatting with Cato, the strong guy from earlier, "she'd have a knife in me before she even felt the pain."

"I think you're overestimating your opponents," I smile down at her. I can barely help myself from being friendly towards this girl. She's the only twelve-year-old this year, and my sudden amicable nature probably comes from someplace sympathetic.

I tell that to myself instead of admitting that she reminds me so much of Prim.

"You haven't seen Clove at the knife station," she shakes her head. "I'm Rue, by the way."

"Katniss," I reply, the uninvited smile not leaving my face. "You want me to help you?"

I don't wait for an answer. I bend down and position her arms in a shooting position around the bow.

"You weren't tucking your elbow in enough," I inform her, moving her elbow accordingly. "And position the arrow between these fingers." I move her fingers around as well. "Alright, pull."

Rue pulls back the arrow, me right beside her.

"Aim down a little bit," I say. "A little more . . . to the right. Just a little more." Rue follows my instruction to a tee. "Okay, release."

Rue sends the arrow flying, and it thwaps the target just a bit above the bullseye.

"Whoa," she breathes, impressed with either me, herself, or both.

"Good job," I compliment, rising to my feet.

"Thanks," she grins. "If you get a bow in the Games, can we make a pact that it's not how you kill me?"

I'm taken aback by how easily she's able to joke about something so morbid. Nevertheless, I say, "Deal. And whatever your specialty is, that's not how you'll kill me, right?"

Rue sighs. "I don't have a specialty, really. At least, not one that could kill you."

"Come on, that's not true."

"Yeah-huh. I mean, I can climb trees. So, I guess I promise not to fall out of a tree and land on top of you. Is that fair?"

I chuckle. "It's a deal."

She hands the bow off to me. "Show your stuff, Katniss," she encourages, than she scampers off to the station with the big net you're supposed to climb.

I chortle a little as I watch her go. Then, seeing Seneca watching me, my face becomes stony. I lift the bow. It feels much less familiar than the bow from back home. I feel Seneca's gaze, probably already calculating the score that could send life-saving sponsors my way or push them away. My palms start to sweat and my grip slides over whatever the bow is made off.

The moment I release the arrow is almost the exact same moment some far off in the training room clatters to the ground. My aim goes awry.

Before I know it, the arrow's in the target.

In the target's arm.

I've choked.

* * *

><p>~End of Chapter~<p>

Thank you guys for making this, by far, my most popular story. You guys are sweethearts.

If you're interested, here's some info about why I portrayed Rue the way I did, and the way I plan too. She's has a bit more of an upfront personality rather than the more subdued, shy Rue in the books. Which is all well and good. Rue was really, really, insanely likable in the book. I mean, I cried when *spoiler* she died. *end spolier* However, from personal taste, I like character more when they've got a little bit of attitutude in them. I don't plan on going all out Buffy the Vampire Slayer with Rue. his is fanfiction, after all. I'm using Rue as Rue, the character. Just a bit more of an outgoing personality, if you don't mind it. Hopefully, she remains adorable, whether I kill her off or not.


	12. Scoring

No rights to The Hunger Games.

* * *

><p>Out of the corner of my eye, I see Seneca turn his attentions elsewhere, as if he's seen all he wants to. I grab another arrow and send it at the target, and this time, it lands almost perfectly on target, right in the heart. I look up to Seneca hopefully, but his attention is diverted. He doesn't even notice.<p>

I mutter something nonsensical, but frustrated, under my breath. I thrust the arrow into the chest of the tribute behind me waiting for me to finish up and start stalking around in search of Gale.

I've just stalked past the knife station, where a brunette is really excelling. "Decent job, Clove," I hear faintly. I make a point to try and not to run into Clove during the Games. Or the blonde, muscular boy who seems to think her work is merely "decent."

My stalking changes to meandering as I continue to search for Gale. I step over strewn weapons and supplies, trying not to step on anything sharp. I try to step over a particular large pile, feeling myself step on a rope on the other side.

The rope is the thick, and my foot slides off of it. Or rather, _into _it. I discover that there is a loop of rope, and it tightens around my ankle. Suddenly, I'm falling onto the pile of weapons.

I don't scream or anything. It doesn't feel appropriate. This isn't even the Games yet. What right to I have to scream now?

"Whoa!" I hear a familiar voice say rather calmly, and suddenly, Gale's arms catch my, one arm behind my back, the other grabbing me by the waist.

"Gale?" I gasp, as he props me upright.

"Hey," he brushes me off patronizingly. "I told you I'd figure something out." He launches into a riveting trap story. "I figured that if I could set the ropes to do that, especially under some leaves or something and also hide weapons nearby, I could take out plenty of tributes without even confronting them. And if they have bear traps or actual snares, I could just disguise those, too."

"Gale," I say disinterestedly. "You almost killed me."

"I caught you," he defends himself.

I slapped him on the arm. "You made me look like a fool in front of Seneca!" I reprimand. "Think of what that will do to my score."

"Seneca kept watching me," Gale shrugged. "You must have lost his interest."

"Don't remind me," I say, bending down to untie the rope from my ankle.

"Here," Gale offers, proving he has some sort of gentlemanlike capability in him. He bends down in front of me and starts loosening the rope from my ankle.

"So who here looks threatening to you?" he asks as he pulls on the rope.

"The brunette with knives, Clove," I reply, "and the blonde with her."

"That's Cato," he informs me. "He kept giving me weird looks."

"He's probably trying to hide his attraction for you," I suggest. "You look smashing in your training uniform."

Gale smiles down at the ropes. "Well, you look okay. But there's this one girl, Glimmer, over by the sword station. Let's just say you've got some stiff competition."

"Are we competing for your affections now?" I smirk.

"What do you think these Games are even for?" he sneers.

"Whatever," I scoff.

He chuckles to himself. "Hey," he says, "what do you think of that girl you were at the bow station with? The twelve-year-old?"

"Rue?" I contemplate for a moment. "I think we don't have half of a clue what she's capable of."

* * *

><p>"How'd it go?" Effie asks excitedly when she, Haymitch, and Cinna clamber into our apartment to watch the scores being announced. Training was a couple days ago, and the other tribute's trials were yesterday.<p>

"Okay," I mumble from the couch beside Gale.

"That bad?" Haymitch sees right through me, and takes a seat in an armchair. Cinna takes a seat beside me and Effie stays perched up on her pointy shoes.

"I choked," I shrugged, "but Gale did alright. Great, actually. He nearly killed me."

"And then saved you," he reminds me.

Effie pushes a button on a remote, and Caesar Flickerman's smiling face pops up in front of us mid-sentence. He's currently explaining the scoring system. Tributes are ranked from one to twelve based on their performance and potential. Higher scores usually result in more sponsors, a comfort should a tribute find themself in a troubling situation.

"Let's start with District 1," he begins.

The first tribute listed is named Marvel. I remember him spending time showing off at the spear station. The judges at the trials would like that. He receives a nine.

Glimmer, the girl whose attractive features Gale had pointed out, receives an eight. I don't remember her being particularly good at any station, but she was District 1, so she should have some skill in her.

Next comes District 2, and I discover it is Cato's district, so I assume it's Clove's, too.

"Cato's score is . . ." Caesar pauses dramatically, and I resist rolling my eyes, "ten!"

"Whoa," I murmur.

"Potential alliance?" Gale questions. It is not even a question of whether or not we will be allied to each other.

"I don't think so," I shake my head. "He seems too . . . ruthless. You two might quarrel a time or two and he could rip your head off."

"You don't think I could defend myself?" Gale pouts.

"I suppose you can run off and walk him right into one of your traps," I shrug.

"Shh, I can't hear!" Effie waggles her hand at us.

Their on District 4, one of the Career districts. Both tributes get nines. The scores start becoming less intimidating from there, particularly from the District 5 redhead whose face resembles that of a fox. I don't recall her being any good at anything in the training room. She receives a seven. She probably demonstrated quickness or knowledge of herbs and plants or something else not very exciting, but undervalued in its usefulness.

When District 11 tributes are shown, I learn that it is Rue's district. Her tribute partner is hulking and I never saw him crack a smile in the training room or when we were being introduced. He receives an eight. Rue receives a seven.

"Alliance?" Gale asks again, recalling my exchange with her in the training room.

"I don't think so," I shake my head.

"I . . . I'm not really here to make friends," I say.

"I'm not talking about friendship, I mean as far as alliances go—"

"Gale," I cut him off abruptly. "No, okay? Drop it."

He looks at me quizzically, but drops the issue, leaning back against the couch as his face pops up on screen.

"Gale Hawthorne," Caesar begins, "received a score of . . ." he does the dramatic pause thing again. I now see why he does it. When you actually care about the end of the sentence, waiting for it makes an emotional impact. Suddenly, I don't like the deed even more. " . . . eleven!" he concludes.

"_What_?" I exclaim before I can help myself.

"I didn't think the trap was _that _intricate," Gale frowns. "Isn't the point of the punishment supposed to be—"

"_Shh_!" Effie demands.

"And Katniss's score is," Caesar continues, then eyes the camera mischeviously.

That pause strategy could seriously kill someone if the conclusion of the statement was important enough. That could be someone's arena strategy. Start a bunch of important sentences and not finish until everyone drops dead with anticipation.

Momentarily captivated in my trivial thoughts, I barely hear Caesar announce that I've received an eleven, too.


	13. Interviews

No rights to The Hunger Games.

* * *

><p>Seneca is wreck of nerves as he sits next to President Snow. He'd been invited personally. They're in his rose garden, perched on a stone bench. Seneca wipes the sweat off his brow with the sleeve of his shimmery, navy suit.<p>

"I saw the scores today, Seneca," Snow speaks up.

"Oh, did you?"

"Yes, I did," Snow nods. "It was . . . interesting."

Seneca flips his gaze up to Snow's face. "Oh?"

"My interest was piqued particularly by the scores received by our District 12 tributes," he says.

Seneca gulps. "Oh."

"Elevens to the both of them," he recalls. "If you would be so kind as to explain your reasoning?"

"Of course," Seneca nodded nervously, and then launches into his explanation, as if he'd known an explanation would be asked of him. "You instructed me to judge them based on their performances during training and what we've seen of them throughout the course of their time as tributes," he recalled. "During this time, they demonstrated the skill to elude guard capture and escape outside the Capitol building, managing to make it to the edge of the Capitol. They stayed for a considerably long time, and I can clearly see the direct correlation these skills could have in the arena. Additionally, during training, a time in which tribute are not supposed to have a handle on things quite yet, the girl proved she had promise with a bow and arrow. On her first shot, she managed to strike a target in the arm, and she assisted another tribute with the weapon, proving her potential in forming alliances easily. The boy also did extremely well with ropes and seems to have an eye for traps and snares. They have a magnificent bond, and it could take them extremely far in the Games. I thought that all of this very much warranted an eleven and—"

"I understand, Seneca," Snow cuts him off sharply. Seneca quiets immediately, seeming to shrink in on himself. "Mr. Crane," he says, "may I ask you something?"

"Of course, sir."

"Who are you rooting for this year?"

Seneca frowns at the inquiry. "As Gamemaker, I'm supposed to be impartial, sir."

"Wrong," Snow bellows. "You are allowed to be swayed. You are allowed to have an opinion."

"Am I?"

"Yes. For the good of Panem."

"Sorry, sir, but I fail to see how the winner of the Games is linked to the well-being of our country."

"Our country is stable," Snow explains, "and safe. We have some unsatisfied and ungrateful citizens, but they manage, just as this country is managing. Now, these District 12 tributes, they are of the unsatisfied and ungrateful sort, as is most of District 12. Their district laments their presence here and they lament the presence of each other. They are going to go to great lengths to protect each other, even if it compromises the well-being of Panem."

"But President Snow," Seneca says, "they're only kids."

"They are capable of much," he says. "You gave them an eleven, didn't you?"

Seneca purses his lips.

"Exactly," says Snow. "Now, Seneca, these children are rebellions waiting to happen, whether they know it or not. I suggest you stop rewarding their insolence, lest you face the consequences."

"Consequences, sir?"

Snow gives him a sidelong look, and Seneca resists the urge to cringe away from him.

"Yes, Seneca. Consequences.

* * *

><p>It's another group date. Gale, Effie, Haymitch and I are lined up on the couch watching the interviews we're forbidden to attend. Effie, on Gale's left, keeps sighing pointedly when a new tribute comes out, marveling at their outfits and make up and reminding what fun we would've had had we not messed everything up in our ill-fated escape plan. Haymitch, on my right, is watching intently, although not commenting on anyone's fashion choices. I would've thought he'd been nodding off, but he's paying close attention to each of our competitors.<p>

He's analyzing them for strategy, I decide, because he wants one of us to win instead.

"What would you have had us say if we were out there?" I ask Haymitch once too much of Glimmer appears in front of us. I ignore Gale's smirk of approval.

"Sell the whole best-friends thing," he says lazily. "Give implications of romance to keep viewers watching out for you two."

"Implications of romance?" I frown. "How would we have done that?"

"Oh, you know," he began, then went into a high-pitched and inaccurate mimicry of my voice, "_I just love Gale so, so much and I don't know what I'd do without him. And he's handsome. Blah, blah memories from back home. Blah, blah, handsome, blah."_

Gale and I are giggling at the imitation, and Effie repeatedly shushes us.

"Why, Katniss, are you blushing?" Haymitch teases.

I suddenly realize my face is hot.

I'm saved from having to reply to that from a particularly vehement shushing from Effie.

I don't pay very close attention to the interviews, although as far as strategy goes, it probably would be wise to. I catch a few things. Cato is excited to get in there and take a few heads off. Foxface doesn't talk much and still doesn't seem to have any skills that would be useful, except maybe intellect and quickness. Rue is kind of in the same boat, and I find myself upset about it.

I begin to listen in more closely when the slot in which my district would be having interviews comes up. Caesar Flickerman stands from his chair and faces a camera, his glittery suit glinting at us under the lighting.

"Now, normally, this is the point where we interview the tributes from District 12."

At the name of our District, several people in the crowd offer a cheer. I frown at the sounds.

"Do we . . . have supporters?" I ask.

"People like friendships," Haymitch shrugs.

"However," Caesar continues, "due to some complications, we will not be hosting interviews with the two tributes, Katniss Everdeen and Gale Hawthorne, at this time."

If it was possible to audibly hear confusion, it could be heard running through that audience.

"They are expected to compete in the Games as planned, but will not receive their interviews before that time."

"_Why_?" one of the more curious audience members dared to ask.

Caesar ignored him, launching into a brief assessment of the events of the interviews, asking rhetorical questions to the camera (_Who do _you _think is going to win this year?_), and beaming at the crowd in attempt to ease their confusion.

"They're curious," Haymitch noted. "Looks like you two get some attention after all."

Gale and I shoot each other meaningful glances.

"Well, that was exciting," Effie says as she turns off the screen. She seems to believe everything Capitol-related is riveting. "And the Games are only a day away!"

"_What_?" Gale and I exclaim in unison.

"Yes!" Effie nods. "It's a fast-paced process."

I can barely process this news.

Tomorrow.

Gale and I are to be thrown into deadly combat _tomorrow_.

* * *

><p>~End of Chapter~<p>

I'm excited for the Games to actually start and to get a bit more angst into this thing.

And FYI, this story is mostly following the book setting more than the movie setting. Therefore, when I picture Gale, I picture the straight, black, kind of longish hair that I imagined whilst reading the book instead of his movie hair. Not that there's anything wrong with Liam Hemsworth's hair. It's just how it is in this story. And I don't picture Jennifer Lawrence as I write this, even though Jennifer Lawrence is fabulous and total babe. I picture the images in my head that I had of these characters, and I suggest you do the same. Except, you know, with your images. And I guess if you picture the actors, that works, too.

Except, for Haymitch, I picture Woody Harrelson. He sold Haymitch as a character for me. Or maybe it was just the movie in general. Either way, I pictured Woody. And do whatever you want with your picture of Effie. (Elizabeth Banks did fabulous, too. Fabulous cast, okay?)


	14. Anticipation

It's not too early to update again, is it?

No rights to The Hunger Games.

* * *

><p>I bolt up from the couch suddenly, and three pairs of eyes widen at the action. I'm supposed to provide an explanation here. <em>I think I'll turn in <em>or _I think I'll get some fresh air. _But I just leave. I bolt for my temporary bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind me. I don't bother locking it and head for the bed. My back is turned to the mattress and my hands cling to the edge as I slide down against it. I hit the floor and release my grip on the bed, entwining my fingers in my hair.

My feelings are getting the best of me.

Suddenly I notice, and I'm not sure when it began, I'm crying.

_I could be killed. Gale could be killed. Gale and I could be killed. _

_Or worse._

I don't let my mind rest on the _and worse _part, because I'm not sure how hysterical that could make me.

I rest my head against my knees, my fingers in my hair, and cry and cry and cry.

I'm faintly aware a section of light spilling into the room, and then disappearing again. The door opening and closing. Soon after, Gale slides down beside me, and puts a comforting hand on my back.

"You okay?" he says quietly.

I lift my head up to look at him meaningfully. "Peachy."

He knows the question is unneeded. If one finds it called for to ask someone if they're okay, then chances are, they aren't. But it's nice to be asked. No matter how sarcastic the reply.

Gale knows that, and he knows that I do appreciate the question. He rubs my shoulder comfortingly, and I don't hesitate to lean into him.

"What are we going to do?" I ask him softly.

He continues rubbing my shoulder as he admits, "We don't need to think about that now."

"The Games are tomorrow," my cracking voice reminds him.

"Whoever won the Games because of a well-planned alliance?"

"Not the entire alliance," I say, not looking at him. "The entire alliance can't win."

Gale doesn't try to get me to look at him. He's quiet for what feels like a very long time.

"Hey, Catnip," he says, "you're the half of us that wins, okay?"

I drop my jaw at him. "What?"

"Call it moral obligation or chivalry or whatever, but if you think I'm going to let myself live while you die, you've got a fight coming your way," he explains.

"Gale!" I exclaim breathily.

"Don't try to argue with me, Katniss," he requested.

"And how exactly do you expect me to keep going without you?" I demand of him.

"You did for twelve years before you met me," he points out. "I don't want your blood on my hands. If I died knowing I could've gone in your place—"

"So you're willing to put your blood on mine?" I cry. "Shifting guilt over to me isn't noble, Gale."

"Not when you put it like that," he says. "Otherwise, it's downright gentlemanly."

"No! Gale, we—"

"Catnip," he cuts me off, "how likely is it we'll be the final two. Let's cross this bridge when we get to it, alright?"

"But—" I try feebly.

"Katniss," he interrupts gently. "Go to sleep. In a bed, while you have the opportunity."

It's a sensible suggestion, and I really am tired. Emotions do that to you. I should try and avoid them. I lift myself onto the bed, and Gale assists me, keeping a hand on the small of my back. This gesture might have been patronizing from anyone else.

"You're not going to leave, are you?" I ask him as slide under the blankets.

In the dimness, I see Gale's figure stand up, and I think he might. But then, he walk around the bed and climbs onto the bed beside me.

"Not for the world," he says.

* * *

><p>The time in which I wake up to the time I'm waiting in room with Cinna for the Games to begin is something of a blur.<p>

Effie is rapping at the door when I pry my eyes open. She practically rips Gale and me out of bed and shoves us to our day. No sympathy exudes from her. She looks customarily excited about Capitol business. Gale and I are eventually separated somewhere in the corridors before I realize what's happening. I don't even have a chance to give him a hopeful or despairing look.

I'm shoved into vehicles. My clothes are changed. A tracker is injected into my arm. I barely register any of it.

Eventually, I end up in an elevator with Haymitch. It may be the last time we ever see each other. He's giving me pointers and advice, and I try desperately to concentrate on what he has to say.

"When you come up into the Arena," he explains, talking with his hands, "there'll be a Cornucopia in the center of all the tributes. There'll be weapons and supplies, probably a bow for you and some snares for the boy, if you showed that off in training. It's your call whether or not you dive into the scramble for that stuff, but know that if you do, you will probably lose half the blood in your body and most of your limbs. And then consequently, you'll be dead."

I make an expression at the comment, but allow him to flow into the next piece of wisdom.

"If you avoid the Cornucopia like you ought to, make finding nourishment, food and water, a priority. Put it before finding your buddy. You won't be any good to him dead. Find food and water first, and preferably a weapon, then go find him."

"What do I do when I find him?" I ask.

"Make sure the audience the audience wants to see more of you," he advises.

"What does that mean?" I frown.

He claps a hand onto my shoulder. "Romance, honey. Work it."

My eyes go wide. It's been brought up before sure, but Haymitch never meant it too seriously. "But I thought the audience liked the best friend dynamic."

"They do," Haymitch agrees. "They're already rooting for you two to make it far. But people make friends often. A romance, that's special. You could have them eating out of the palm of your hand. You are of opposing genders and you're extremely close. The audience is already rooting for it to happen.

"Don't give it to them immediately, though," he advises. "Let it flesh itself out."

"How do I know when it's fleshed out?" I ask.

"Probably when you start developing actual feelings for him," Haymitch says simply.

I give him a shocked looked.

He shrugs at the expression. "Don't pretend it's not likely."

The doors open in front of us. Cinna waits in the room with a glass tube I'm presumably supposed to get into so it can lift me into the arena. I force myself not to hyperventilate.

I turn to Haymitch and throw my arms around him.

"Thank you," I say into his ear as I hug him.

I wouldn't do this with many people. The only reason I'm doing it with Haymitch is because I know it makes him as uncomfortable as it would make me. For some reason, that's comforting. It's like I'm giving him a hard time, deliberately annoying him. But I'm sure he knows I mean more than that.

"Whatever," he offers, awkwardly putting my shoulder. And I know he means more than that, too.

I release my grip and drop my arms. He squeezes my shoulder reassuringly.

"You do good out there, sweetheart," he says, "for that sister of yours."

I nod, forcing back tears.

I step out of the elevator and Haymitch disappears behind me. Cinna smiles warmly at me as I enter.

"I found this on the outfit you wore before I set you on fire," Cinna holds something up towards me. It's the mockingjay pin Gale gave me.

"Oh!" I gasp, taking it from him. "Thank you."

"Here," he offers. He takes the pin from me and pins it to my uniform. The tributes are all dresses similarly, dark colors and minimalistic. Nothing special. I wonder if Glimmer will still look gorgeous.

"Thank you," I say again.

"I'm rooting for you," he tells me. "And your tribute friend, too. Not just one of you."

I look up at him, and we meet eyes. At this point, it seems trite, but I repeat the words anyway.

"Thank you."

He nods graciously, and then holds out a hand, gesturing toward the clear tube. My breath catches in my throat as I realize immediacy of the situation. My feet seem to move slowly and unbidden toward the tube. I step into it, and the tube slides closed.

A terrifying, immediate silence assaults my ears. I look back desperately at Cinna. He seems somber at my condition, but I wouldn't be able to hear anything he'd say to comfort me.

Instead, he brings his hand to his lips and then stretch out his arm, holding up his three middle fingers. It's a sign I know from my district. A salute of sorts. A sign of respect.

It's terribly contrived and overused now, and it's probably lost its meaning, but I think of no better term.

I mouth _thank you._

The floor begins to lift me into the arena.


	15. Bloodbath

No rights to The Hunger Games.

* * *

><p>I rise up onto the platform, and the arena is revealed before me. It's a forest, and as much as you can breathe a sigh of relief is this situation, I do. I know forests. If the arena had been a frozen tundra, I'm not sure what I'd do.<p>

Circled around the metal cornucopia are the twenty-four tributes, including myself. Ordered by District, Gale is positioned directly next to me. We meet eyes, and I see the same anxiety on his face that is probably mirrored in mine. He nods to me and I nod back. It's reassurance. We are still together, a small, but massive reassurance in this whole situation.

His eyes flip down to the pin attached to my shirt. He lets out a small smile at the token.

I'm suddenly aware of Seneca's voice booming over the arena. He's on fourteen already. I brace my leg muscles to run. But where?

I could brave the Cornucopia, but that's an almost guaranteed bloodbath, and I have no weapon yet. Getting to a bow quickly would be key. I think I see a bundle of bows and one single arrow nestled in the Cornucopia. But bows are range weapons. There will probably be tons of tributes on my tail if I got to the bow. How would I fight them off? There are knives right next to the bow. Clove would probably have one of them in my before I could spin around.

But then what? Go into the woods without any supplies?

I lock eyes with Gale again. Seneca is on nine on the countdown. Gale gestures with his head towards the woods. At my doubtful look, he does so more urgently.

He wants to brave the bloodbath and have me trot off to safety.

I shake my head. Seneca is on six.

He gestures his head again. Five, four.

He shoots me a demanding glower. Three.

I want to explain to him the illogical reasoning behind such a decision, but he can't hear me from there. Two.

One.

And the tributes are off.

My feet push me off the platform.

Forget Gale.

I'm running at the Cornucopia.

Foxface darts into my path, and my breath catches in my throat as I consider the possibility of having to kill the girl with my bare hands. But she doesn't acknowledge me. She continues to dash off and disappeared into the surrounding forests.

I start up running again and Gale falls in step beside me.

"I told you to run," he growls.

"You twitched your head around. That could mean anything," I pant.

He's not about to waste time trying to convince me to run again. We're already in the midst of the combat, loud and bloody and violent. I hop over a smaller tribute crawling for a backpack and dash inside the Cornucopia. Cato, who has apprehended a sword, turns and slashes it towards me. I back out of the swords path and dart around him, his hulking figure not able to keep up with me. I grab the bows and arrows and spin around, and Cato is facing me now, the urge to kill gleaming in his eyes.

I mentally reprimand myself for my stupidity. Barely three minutes into the Games and I'm already going to die?

Cato raises a sword in his hand, prepared to bring it down on me. I reach for a bow in the quiver, but I already know I won't be able to position it in time.

And then, Cato's grim features go slack. For a moment, I'm confused. Then, I see the sword protruding from his abdomen. It's drawn out of his body, and Cato's dead body falls to the ground in a heap.

Cato, the promising, almost surefire winner, is already out of the Games.

And Gale is responsible.

I look up at him, wide-eyed.

"Who would opt for combat next to a crowd and a rack of swords?" Gale shrugs.

Does he care? Does it bother him that he just killed a person?

"_Cato!_" I hear, loud and desperate. Clove must've taken notice to her District partner's demise.

"Come on," Gale beckons, offering his hand. I take it, and he lifts me to my feet. I hang the quiver of arrows across my body and grip the bow. No one is about to take this away from me.

Together, Gale and I dash out of the Cornucopia. On our way out, Gale grabs some rope and a backpack, which he slings over his shoulder. To my surprise, he passes by the bear traps and snares on the ground.

We scamper out of the clearing and into the forests, where we keep running. It's not until we're about a mile away from the bloodbath that we start slowing.

We're panting heavily by the time we slow to a stop. I'm the first to collapse to the ground into a sitting position, right on top of a large, smooth rock that I could've cracked my skull on had I tripped over it, and Gale follows soon after. We spend about a minute just breathing heavily and leaning on each other.

"We're alive," I note as my heart rate steadies.

"Yeah," Gale breathes. "It's strange."

He unslings the backpack from his shoulder as cannonfire starts sounding throughout the arena. The blasts each signify a dead tribute. I hear eleven blasts. Their pictures should be flashed across the sky tonight. Cato will be one of them.

"You killed someone today," I say, almost to myself.

Gale's jaw tightens at the reminder. "Well, yeah. He was going to kill you."

The topic ends there.

"What's in the bag?" I ask.

Gale unzips the backpack and pulls out a canteen full of water, which he immediately unscrews and start gulping down.

"Hey!" I snap, swatting his hand away from his mouth. "Ever heard of rationing?"

"I've heard of thirst, and I'm experiencing it first-hand," he defends.

I chortle at his lack of foresight. He ends up screwing the canteen closed without taking another drink, but not before offering it to me. I shake my head, and he lays it aside. Also in the bag are five small knife with blades no bigger than Gale's thumb, more length of rope, some scrap metal, and a device used to start fires.

Gale flips the lighter on and off. "Remember when we were on fire?"

I snatch the thing away from him. "Let's not do that again, okay?"

It suddenly crosses my mind that cameras and millions of people and Seneca Crane are probably watching our friendly exchange right now. Someone is probably going to try and set us on fire for the pure irony of it now.

"I can work with these," Gale said, examining the items.

"To makes traps?"

Gale nods.

"Why didn't you snatch up one of the pre-made traps?" I ask.

"Their Capitol-issued. Who knows what they're supposed to do?" he says, although I think he could figure that out easily enough on his own. "And I'm not sure running with one tucked under my arm is the smartest idea. I can find some littered in the woods later, probably."

I slide off the rock and lean against, my breath reaching a steady pace, only slightly deeper.

"We're alive," I say again. It's still so improbable.

"Yeah, Gale repeats. "Strange, isn't it?"


	16. Assault

Whoa. I didn't know people liked Cato so much. I mean, I don't regret killing him off. And I didn't plan to until I was writing that chapter. But FYI, if I had kept him around, I probably would've had a Cato-Clove pairing instead of a Cato-Glimmer pairing. That, or no pairing would happen at all.

Anyhoo.

No rights to The Hunger Games.

* * *

><p>We stay in the same general area until nightfall, Gale messing with the metal and ropes. A tune starts chiming away in the area around us, and through the trees, I can see images flashing in the sky. Cato's is the first image shown. Gale jaw clenches, and he looks away from the display, fiddling with the canteen in his hands.<p>

All the other Careers still live, those from 1,2, and 4. District 3 is gone. Foxface is alive, but her District partner is dead. All of District 6 and 7 are dead. The boy from 9 is still going. 10 has been wiped out, and both of 11, Rue's District, are still living. And, of course, Gale and I are alive.

"Thirteen left," I inform Gale after a bit of math. "Eleven gone."

Gale doesn't react noticeably to the news. I know what he's thinking. We're closer to victory. Good. But it's probably also closer to one of our death.

"What do we do now?" he asks.

"Sleep, I suppose," I suggest.

Gale shakes his head. "The Careers are probably resting up and will come after stragglers in the morning. I should keep working on the traps."

"How will you outrun angry Careers if you're dead tired?"

"Haven't you heard?" Gale says. "Lack of sleep does not hinder my awe-inspiring combat capabilities."

I chortle at the idea.

"I could . . . did you hear that?"

I freeze and listen. In the distance, very faintly, I hear someone yelling, a boy's voice. I barely make out the words.

"_Clove, what do you think you're doing_?"

It's so quiet. I have to listen closely to make out the words. I don't even hear footsteps yet.

And then, a figure bursts out of the woods, breaking the silence with a primal shriek.

Clove falls onto Gale, toppling him to the ground, his head thumping against the smooth rock. There's a knife in her hand, and I quickly draw a bow and position my arrow.

"You _killed Cato_!" I hear her screech at Gale's face.

Geez, Gale. Out of all the Careers you could've killed to ensure my safety, you choose the one who could handle knives and apparently, had a revenge kick.

I launch the arrow at arrow at her, but she sees me in her peripheral before it takes off. She rolls off of Gale and out of the way.

The arrow flies into Gale's shoulder.

He cries out in anguish, and I gasp in horror.

Clove starts charging me, and before I can draw another arrow, she grabs me by the shoulders and pins me to the tree. My ears ring when my head collides with it. I taste blood in the back of my throat.

Obviously, I'm also being blamed for Cato's death.

Clove rears her knife behind her head, and I have a terrible feeling it will stab straight into my eye. But then, I see Gale's hands slide over her face and wrench her head back. Clove's hands come off of me and she tries to pry Gale's hand away. I am thankful that she doesn't have the presence of mind right now to merely slice his fingers off.

"Katniss, _run_!" Gale barks at me.

I don't listen to him. I draw another arrow and aim it at Clove's heart. But she's wriggling around, almost free of Gale's grip. I notice the bloody arrow lying next to the rock, the dark stream flowing out of Gale's shoulder.

If I stay, and use the only weapon I know how, I could kill him.

But what if the other Career's showed up soon?

"_Run!_" Gale pleads.

Reasoning fills my brain, confusing me further. If could stay and possibly kill him. I could leave, and he could possibly die.

Well, one of us has to die, right? And I don't want to be the one to kill him.

It makes sense for about two seconds. The moment that I take off into the unexplored parts of the woods, grabbing the arrow as I go, I'm second-guessing, I'm changing my mind, I'm mentally reprimanding myself for my selfishness.

But I keep going. The look in Gale's eyes when he pleaded for me to run keeps me running keeps my feet pounding through the underbrush.

A knife whizzes past my ear and sticks into a tree by my head.

_Clove is still alive? Gale didn't break her neck yet? Does this mean Gale is_…

I keep running.

When I stop to catch my breath, leaning one hand against the tree, I feel so miserable I feel like my stomach my explode.

I shouldn't have left Gale, I decide.

But maybe if I had stayed, I would think differently.

It's pitch black now, and I can barely see my hands in front of my face. There's not much sense in trying to make my way back to the rock in this lighting.

I slide down against the tree, leaning my head against it. Once I hit the ground, I fall over to one side. I'm almost completely hidden underneath various plants. I try to fall asleep quickly, eager to get away from my situation. But it doesn't work.

I try to keep the thought at bay that it would be easier to fall asleep if Gale was here with me.

But who knows where Gale is now?

* * *

><p>~End of Chapter~<p>

THe most tortuous part of writing this was doing the math for figuring which tributes were still alive. Augh.


	17. Smooth Rock

No rights to The Hunger Games.

* * *

><p>I sleep without being disturbed. When I open my eyes, the sun is peeking through the leaves above me. I push myself to a sitting position, mentally fighting off the grogginess.<p>

About five seconds later, a series of realizations slam into me so hard, that if I were I standing, I would've keeled over.

_I am in the Hunger Games._

_Gale is in the Hunger Games._

_I've left Gale._

_Gale might be dead._

I didn't hear a cannon fire last night, but I wasn't in a reliable state for hearing one. It doesn't make sense that I didn't hear one. Either Gale or Clove should have been taken out.

I lean my head back against a tree behind me, taking a deep breath in attempt to collect myself. After I think I'm steady enough to go on with my life, a push myself to my feet.

I have the bow and arrows, but no food or water. I take a moment to consider whether or not to search out more supplies, because at this point, I'm ravenously hungry, or go off in search of Gale.

I decide that my desire to know what's become of Gale outweighs my hunger.

I trudge back in the direction I think I came. On the way, I grab some berries and nuts I find and shove them into the pockets of my jacket, munching at some that I deem safe as I walk. I check the berries carefully. I wouldn't want to come across nightlock or something.

After about forty-five minutes of walking, I decide I'm heading in the wrong direction. I keep panic at bay for the meantime and simply change angles. After thirty minutes that direction, and still not seeing Gale or the smooth rock, I let myself panic.

It's internal for the most part, mostly a tight a feeling in my chest along with some short breaths.

I change direction five times within the next hour. The trees start looking familiar and the plants start blending together.

Then, as I'm heading in a direction I believe to be east of where I started, a parcel falls in front of me.

It's a parachute, the kind sponsors send to tributes when they're in trouble.

Not that I'm not grateful, but I frown at the package. I'm not particularly thirsty, and there is food in my hands. I bend down to the parachute and detach the note stuck to it.

_You're on the right track, sweetheart. –H_

Of course.

Haymitch wanted us the display our relationship. It's harder to do when we're not together. Since Haymitch sent me a gift when I went this direction, I must be going in the right direction.

Inside the box is a small vile of water that probably wouldn't satisfy the thirst of a bird, nothing to extravagant. It could be useful, I suppose. I stuff it into my pocket and continue in the direction I'd chosen.

I think I hear rustling above me. I wonder which tributes can climb trees.

I walk a little faster.

I'm walking for about twenty more minutes when another parachute drops.

_Still good. –H_

The package has another basically useless vile of water, which I shove in pocket with the other one.

As I stalk through the thicket, I think I make out something gray through the plants. As I get closer, I realize it's what I think it is.

It's a smooth rock.

I pick up the pace to the familiar clearing. There's no sign of Gale.

I break into the clearing and scan it frantically. I don't have to look for long.

"Hey, Catnip," a familiar voice greets me.

I spin around to face the rock. Gale is using it to push himself upright with one arm, the other applying pressure to his wounded shoulder.

"Gale!" I exclaim.

I just about charge him, overcome with relief, and he puts his arm not occupied with preventing blood loss against my back.

"You killed Clove?" I ask as I hug him.

I feel his head shake against my shoulder.

I pull away from him, keeping my hands around his neck.

"Then how are you alive?"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," he says with a lazy grin. He pulls away from me and leans against a tree, adjusting his hand on the wound I gave him. "I broke her arm when her friends reached us. They freak out, carried her off kicking and screaming, probably to try and heal her."

"Why would the Careers do that?" I frown. "Why didn't they just kill you both?"

"I think Clove is their best warrior," he explains. "I guess they didn't want to lose her just yet. She was covered in my blood. They must've thought it was hers and carried her off in a hurry. I guess I should thank you for shooting me in the shoulder, then."

I wince at the memory. "Let me help you with that," I offer.

Gale knows my mom is known for her healing skills, and I should've picked up a few things. He doesn't protest.

I venture a few feet into the forest in search of the plants that would have the best effect on the kind of wound I gave him.

As I pick at leaves at plans, I notice a stupid grin on my face, probably a side effect of my massive relief. I liken the smooth rock and the small clearing to our spot in the woods back in District 12. It's a place where we can meet up if we ever get separated, a spot where we are together and where our situation can be put on the backburner for a short time as we share stories and exchange plans. When Gale and I are there, we have no grievances between us. We are together. We are fine.

This is the solace the smooth rock helps provide us with.

* * *

><p>I claimed earlier to be going by the book more than the movie. An exception would be the notes given with the parachutes. I liked that, and it's useful for the story.<p>

Thanks for the reviews!


	18. Moment

I had a dream that I updated this story, added a bunch of OCs, and I got a whole bunch of feedback, but it was pretty much all disapproval. It was horrible.

No rights to The Hunger Games.

* * *

><p>"It's been quiet," I point out, staring through the leaves at a misleadingly peaceful sky.<p>

"Yup," Gale agreed with a grunt, stretching his arm and wincing when his shoulder protests. "No one died last night."

"What do you think is happening with everyone else?"

Gale sighs heavily. We're both leaning against the rock, beside each other.

"The viewers should know," Gale replies.

"Do you whatever it is is exciting enough to keep the Gamemakers from setting something loose on us?" I ask hopefully.

"I doubt it, if it didn't result in death."

We both takes sign in the same moment and absentmindedly lean against each other. It springs to my mind what Haymitch said about beating an exciting interaction out of the two of us. If I want to keep the Gamemakers from setting us on fire, I suppose now would be good time to start.

But I have no idea how to begin.

"Hey, Gale," I say, "did Haymitch speak to you one-on-one before the Games?"

"Yeah," he replies.

"What about?"

He frowns down at me. "Why do you ask, Catnip?"

_So we can start selling the fact that we are madly in love with each other in order to ensure people loving us._ No, then the viewers would feel a little betrayed.

"Never mind," I brush it off. But I don't give up the plan. "Um . . . do you miss home?"

Gale shrugs.

I scowl. "You _like _being here?"

"No, that's not it," he assures me, "but I don't like being home either."

"Oh."

"My favorite part about being home followed me into the arena."

I can almost hear the unanimous _aww!_ emitting from the more emotional audiences. He's better at this than I am.

"What about your family?" I point out. It's probably a mistake. I don't want to portray Gale as heartless towards them.

"I love them, I guess," he says unconvincingly. "But taking care of them so much, it was kind of stressful, especially doing it since I was a kid."

"You still are a kid."

"But I'm exceptionally mature for my age," he smirks.

I smile. I don't mean what I said about him being a kid. He's eighteen, but looks older, and acts older, and just about everything about him is older except that childish fits of rage I see in him every once in a while.

"Hey, Gale," I continue. "Why are you angry so much?"

"The Capitol," he scoffs.

I look at him pointedly. _They can see us, you know_, I try to get across with my eyes.

"Yeah, I know," he responds aloud, a mischievous, crooked smile on his lips. "They should know." He looked into the trees, where he supposed a camera was nestled. "You hear that, Capitol? You are violently corrupt and unscrupulous and please perform a total one-eighty in your moral principles."

"Gale," I warned whilst holding back a small smile.

"Especially you, President Snow," he added.

"Gale!" I exclaimed, leaning forward to better face him. He'd gone too far.

He held his hands out. "What?"

I tried to do silent communication with him, hoping the audiences and Snow perceived my expression as vehement defensiveness of Snow's morality.

_He could kill us, _I try to remind him, conveying concern and various emotions I think go into such a message.

Again, he understands, or gets some similar message. He gives me a one-shouldered shrug and a lazy expression.

I understand. He thinks he's going to die soon anyway. Why should he care?

I roll my eyes. "You ought to stop expecting to die, Gale," I plead.

"Maybe some other time."

"Seriously," I emphasize, my voice escalating. "It doesn't reassure me, or comfort me, or lighten the mood, or whatever it is you're trying to accomplish by doing it. Do you know what it does do? It _terrifies _me. So if I actually am your _favorite part of District 12 _or whatever, shut up about it."

"Catnip—"

"_No_, I mean it! Plus, as I recall, you've saved my life a couple times already, so chances are, I'm going to die first anyway."

Gale's face fell. "So you can talk about you're potential death, but I can't talk about mine?"

"Generally, yeah," I nod.

"That's hypocritical," he argues.

"So what if it is?"

"It's not nice of you," he points out triumphantly.

I scoff. "You're annoying."

"You're short."

"No, I'm not! You're just tall!"

Huh.

So we've abandoned the romantic concept and settled for bickering like seven-year-olds. What was that I was saying about Gale's maturity?

"Hey," Gale said suddenly, cutting off the flow of back-and-fourth jabs, "can I end this debate my way?"

"By agreeing with me?"

"No, actually."

And then he leans forward, seizes my face in her hands, and he kisses me.

For several seconds, I'm too stunned to move. Well, I move my lips. As for the rest of my body, I'm rigid.

When a few seconds is up, I've gained the ability to move. Apparently, I still haven't gained the ability to think sensibly, because my reaction is to shove Gale away as I exclaim, "_What on God's green earth are you doing_?"

Gale isn't offended. He chuckles at my reaction, biting his bottom lip. "All this talk of imminent death has gotten me wanting to seize the moment, or whatever."

I gape at him. He just looks back at me and chortles.

I messed that up. I should've kept that going. The sponsors we could've gotten out of that! And we are probably both pretty hungry right now. We're used to being hungry, so we haven't complained about it, but it would do us some good.

We sit there for a while, not speaking. A few minutes later, something shimmer as it floats towards the ground.

"Is that . . .?"

"Yep," I reply, catching it before it hits the ground.

The box has some very grainy rolls in it, definitely from out district, and they're still warm.

Haymitch's note reads:

_Decent, but don't screw up the moment next time. -H_

* * *

><p>~End of Chapter~<p>

Please excuse the break in anything action-related happening. And I'm really bad at writing the pivotal moment of the romance, okay? Which is ironic, because I barely write anything without any romance. Does anyone have a tutorial for romance writing? Ugh.


	19. Devouring

Thank you so much for the lovely feedback, kind lovelies.

I've gotten into the habit of proofreading more thoroughly, which is obviously barely any fun at all, but I guess you can expect less typos now.

No rights to Supernatural.

Wow. I just typed that didn't I. I'm used to writing fic for that show, okay? If you watch the show, feel free to check out my profile.

What I mean is . . .

No rights to The Hunger Games.

(I almost typed "Supernatural" again.) Anyway.

* * *

><p>It's well into afternoon and things are still quiet. I hope something violent and attention-getting is going on with the Careers, because it seems almost time for the Gamemakers to start taking action. I hope Rue is still having a boring, peaceful time, though. Any brainless violence going on, I find myself not wanting her to be a part of it. Foxface, with the way she'd avoided conflict throughout training and at the bloodbath, seems unlikely to be a very exciting competitor. The remaining competitors ought to be a lot like me and Gale right now, just clambering through the woods, hoping to survive.<p>

"I'm thirsty," Gale says, interrupting my thoughts. "And hungry. You?"

"Definitely," I agree.

"Well, you've got that arrow of yours," he comments, "and I've been tinkering with traps throughout the day. Shall we hunt?"

I smile spreads over my face.

We leave the clearing with the smooth rock together, treading on the balls of our feet. I'm not sure what animals are in these forests. I know what animals are in normal forests, but who knows what lurks in the woods of the Hunger Games?

My bow is at the ready and Gale and I drift apart slightly as he sets up traps in areas he thinks certain animals would pass. At one point, he sets one up in a dense underbrush right up against a tree.

"Why would an animal go there?" I ask curiously.

"It probably wouldn't," he admits, rearranging leaves over his trap, "but a person might."

I frown. "A person?" I repeat. "Are you trying to kill people now?"

He sighs heavily. "It's the Hunger Games, isn't it? I don't want either of us to die. I might as well go after the others."

It makes sense if I was to think about it, but I still have trouble accepting it. Gale becoming a killer isn't a thought I'm willing to welcome, even if it's already accurate, because of the Cato thing. I want to know Gale as the slightly neurotic and fiercely loyal boy from District 12, a stone's throw away from being a man.

Now, I'm watching him set up a trap in hopes a child might tiptoe into it. I look away.

"Should we split up?" I ask, not looking at him. "Cover more ground?"

He rises to his feet, wrapping some rope around his shoulder. "I don't think that's the best idea."

"Why not?"

"You could die."

"Any particular reason for the lack of confidence in me?"

Gale approaches me, bending to the ground in front of me. Carefully, he moves some plants, leaning them in opposite direction with intense precision. I can see the glimmer of something in the opening Gale makes in the leaves.

"A bear trap," I observe. Two steps and I would be dead.

"Yeah," he nods, rising above me as he stands. "Can you find a stick?"

I lift a thick stick from the ground and hand it to Gale. He prods it into the bear trap and it goes off, breaking the stick in half. I flinch as the trap goes off, seeing it devour the hopeless end of the stick.

"That's a strong trap," I observe.

"It's a useful trap," he says, scooping up the neutralized device.

"It also means someone was here," I note. "Someone could be close by. Do you see any prints?"

Gale and I scan the immediate area and find no evidence of someone being in the proximity.

"I guess these kids move fast," Gale says. "No problem now. We spotted the trap."

"Continue hunting, then?"

"I guess we—Do you hear that?" he frowns.

My grip tightens on my bow as I listen. There's a faint sound, somewhere between a roar and a crackle.

"What is that?" I scrunch my eyebrows.

The sound gets louder, and I can make out where it's coming from, to Gale and I's right side. We both turn to that direction, and there's a glimmer in the distance.

"Oh, no," Gale murmurs.

I cram the arrow I had ready back into the quiver. "Run," I bark.

Gale and I are sprinting in the opposite direction, away from the threatening gleam. But the sound gains on us, roaring after us, a fire consuming the trail behind us. The backpack, full of Gale's traps and all of our other supplies, rustles against Gale's back, and the bear trap is looped over his arm. I hope it doesn't slow him down.

I recall thinking earlier that the Gamemakers could set us on fire merely fore ironic effect. Looks like I was right.

We wind through the trees, and the roar trails us. We are groggy and underfed, and the exertion takes its toll on us. The fire devours the trees in its path. It's on our heels. I can feel the heat, menacing in its nearness. When my eyes catch Gale's face through the trees, the fire is reflecting across Gale's cheek. I snap my face forward, not willing to catch a glance of the fiery threat just behind us.

I stumble over a rock I don't see, and fire licks at the hem of my pants. As I stomp forward, the flame goes out, and I sprint with a renewed vigor.

There's a sting at my side, protesting as I run. I try and ignore it, but it nags and screams. I end up clutching it as I propel forward. I'm running faster than I ever have, faster than I thought was possible. And it's still not fast enough. Fire teases my heels. I start to think that unless the Gamemakers put the fire out themselves, Gale and I are toast, and don't get me started on the irony of that.

My foot thumps against the ground at an odd angle, and I realize the path has descended. I'm running downhill. Thankfully, it picks up my speed, but it throws off my balance. My foot slides out from under me and I thud against the dirt. The fire wastes little time slithering onto me.

I am on fire.

The flame travels up my pant leg and up my sleeves. The pain is excruciating. The flames don't smother as I roll down the hill. In fact, the bumps and bruises only add to my pain as the fire still trails after me.

The viewers must be eating this up.

I keep rolling downhill. The pain increases. My head feels fuzzy. I can't tell the difference between the fire chasing Gale and I and the fire clinging to my body. It's all bright, menacing, potential pain. I keep rolling, tumbling . . .

And I roll right into water.

I can hardly believe. It's improbable, almost impossible, maybe a miracle.

I splash into a body of water at the bottom of the hill, and the flames sizzle away, my burns abruptly soothed.

I take a long moment to feel a strange mix of disbelief and relief. Then I realize, I can't breathe.

I raise my head above the water, sputtering and gasping so heavily, I'm surprised the whole arena can't hear me.

I lean against the back of my hands and let the realization that I'm alive wash over me, allowing my breathing to steady. I small smile reaches my lips.

I glance back at the forest. There are some charred trees and twigs, but the fire has gone out, probably a decision by Seneca, satisfied with the events.

I'm about to let another episode of relief overtake me, but I make another observation that makes my heavy breaths catch in my throat.

Gale is nowhere in sight.


	20. Burns

No rights to The Hunger Games.

* * *

><p>"Gale!" I call before I can stop myself. Any nearby tributes will probably have burns and wounds to be concerned about. This is probably my best chance to call for Gale without much backlash.<p>

"_Gale_!" I call again. I start to rise from the water, but my body screams in protest, my burns sizzling on my skin. I hiss in a breath then lower myself beneath the surface again.

My heart is racing as I scan the charred forests, looking empty and barren. "_Gale_!" I try again.

There is no reply. There's a slight ripple in the pond I've rolled into from my subtle movement and the occasional rustle of discreet forest movement.

But no one answers.

I scoot toward the edge of the water, trying to ease my burns out of the water. I manage to ease my upper body out, sitting at the edge of the water between two good-sized rocked. I ease off my jacket carefully, or what's left of it, wincing at it scrapes against my burns. I glance down at my arm. Nasty, red splotches run down the length of both of them. Tears brim at my eyes as the wounds sting and I lean back into the water, resting on my elbows, which sink into cool mud. I don't dare look at my legs now.

I wait there, hoping Gale will stumble from the black woods, relieved to have found me.

I bring up my hands up to rub the back of my neck. I pull my hand away sharply when more pain ensues. Carefully, I trail my hand up neck, onto my cheek, to the area around my temple, dangerously close to my eye. Burns. Painful, stinging burns.

I must look gorgeous right now.

I sigh heavily, lifting the quiver of arrow off of my shoulder and resting it on the bank. There's been a considerable color change in the items since their brush with the flames, and some of them have melted into odd shapes, but they still seem intact, along with the bow. I lean my back against one of the rocks and close my eyes, waiting for the pain to lessen.

I hear a rustle, somewhere in the treetops. I'm too exhausted to be paranoid about it. I assume it's the wind, although I feel no wind. Just blazing heat, taking its toll on my wounds.

After a moment, I remember how thirsty I am. I position myself onto my knees, ignore the pain, and take generous gulps from the water body. It makes strange sounds as it thumps into my near-empty stomach.

I hear the rustle of the trees again. With water in me, I have the energy to take note of it. Faintly, I hear a light thump against the ground. I pin my back against the rock against and attempt to freeze my muscles, slow my breaths.

I barely hear them. Footsteps. Small and light, pattering in the woods.

The small thumps grow louder. My heart hammers. My bow and arrow is at the bank of the pond, just over an arm's length away. If I reach for it, I could give away my position.

The steps come from behind me, from the other side of the rock I'm up against. I take a moment to consider that it could be Gale, and he's smart enough to not call out for me.

Do I risk looking?

For Gale, of course I do.

As quietly as I can manage, I slide against the rock, taking a moment to realize the irony of how _smooth _it is, and poke my head out.

There's a figure, closer than I expected.

But it is not Gale.

It's Rue.

I should pull back into the obscurity of the rock, hide myself from her view. But for whatever reason, I keep staring, and keep staring until we might eyes.

Her heads angles in my direction, and my breath catches as our eyes lock. She freezes at the sight of me, and for several seconds, we merely stare at each other.

"Katniss?" she says after those moments.

"Rue?" I say back.

I don't know what the point of that was. We know full well who we are.

"You look awful," she grimaces.

I point at the burns on my face. "Do you think this will harm my chances in the District 12 pageant?"

She gave a small smile. For the first time, I notice a large knife in her hand. I can barely believe she can carry it with just one hand.

"Are you going to kill me?" I somehow decide it's wise to ask.

She looks down at the knife, as if just noticing she's wielding it.

"I suppose if I was going to, I should've done it already," she says.

"I suppose that's true."

She dangles the knife at her side. "Do you know where your friend is?"

I shake my head somberly, and her face darkens.

"What?" I demand.

"Nothing," she says quickly.

"Rue," I say, warning in my voice.

"It's just . . . I saw him in the woods. Both of you. Then the fire came, and I heard a scream. From a boy. It could . . . it could've just been surprise, though. I mean, there was fire all over the place. I thought you'd know whether or not he was okay."

"I didn't hear a canon shot," I try to reason with myself.

"Of course not," she chuckled humorlessly. She gestures at my condition. "You were too busy being on fire."

Panic seizes me. There is no use in panicking. If Gale is dead, anxiety won't make him any less dead.

Rue's face softens. She's about to tell me something generic and comforting when a twig snaps.

Rue and I snap our faces towards the blackened woods. The noise is clearer than Rue's masterful trotting through the trees. It's louder, sloppier.

Heavy footsteps. Grunting of pain and exertion. A few pained moans.

There a different voices, like it's coming from a group.

Rue makes her eyes wide as she looks back at me. "Careers," she says quietly.


	21. Chase

I wish there was a relevent and witty quip written here.

No rights to The Hunger Games.

* * *

><p>"Come here," I hiss at Rue urgently.<p>

Still clutching her knife, Rue skitters towards me. We lean against the rock, obscuring ourselves from the sight of the forest.

"Don't move," I order her. "Breathe through your nose, if at all."

Rue clamps her mouth closed as we hear the Careers emerge from the forest. There's a heavy sigh of relief.

"Water!" Glimmer breathes in wonder. "Guys, water!"

Heavy thudded footsteps start thundering our direction.

"Scoot," I whisper.

As quietly as we can manage, we scoot around the large rock. As the first foot hits the water, we take advantage of the noise and scoot more quickly. By the time the Careers have all splashed into the shallows, Rue and I have once again scooted out of their sights.

I dare to peek around the rock. Glimmer, Clove, the District 1 boy, and the District 4 girl are eagerly splashing in the water, lathering their burns and wounds.

There are four Careers left.

I haven't paid much attention to faces that have flashed in the sky, and I realize I'm not sure how many tributes are left in general. I want to ask Rue, but it'd be stupid to bring up such a trivial issue at the moment.

"I'm so glad we found this," Glimmer muses, throwing her jacket to the shore and leaning back into the water much like I had, although looking noticeably better doing so. There was a harsh burn at the edge of her jaw, and still she manages to be utterly gorgeous. "Well, so glad _I _found this."

The District 1 boy scoffs. "We were all walking the same way, Glimmer. Wouldn't we all have stumbled upon it eventually?"

Glimmer shrugs, and golden hair the somehow evaded the fire falls off of her shoulder. "Marvel, let's not look at things too deeply, shall we?"

"What's our next move?" Clove asks, splashing water down the back of her neck.

"Who's left?" the District 4 girl asks for clarification.

"The four of us," Marvel recites, "the District 5 girl with the funny face, and all of 11 and 12."

_That's it_?

The way Marvel lists it, it sounds like such a small amount, but that's nine people. Nine lives. Eight more deaths. Eight potential murders that could rip a family a part.

I glance at Rue and promptly stop thinking about it.

My gaze returns to the Career's discussions.

"I think we should go after twelve first," the District 4 girl suggests. "They're like, in love, or whatever, so we can probably find them together and take out both of them."

Ha! Joke's on you, District 4.

I don't know. Jokes that are bleak and humorless help lighten a situation, don't they?

"12 boy killed Cato," Clove informs her maliciously. "We shouldn't underestimate him."

"Just because he killed Cato," Marvel says, "doesn't mean he's fabulously skilled."

"Well, what else could it mean?" Clove barks.

"Maybe Cato was just incompetent—"

"Shut up!" Clove snapped.

"I miss Cato," Glimmer muses. "He was hot."

Clove's head twisted to glare at her. "What does that matter?"

"Yeah, what does that matter?" District 4 girl repeats. "If he couldn't protect himself—"

"He could!" Clove snaps at her, voice escalating. "He, I don't know, got caught off-guard or something!"

"Why do you keep defending him?" Glimmer pipes up.

"He keeps coming up!"

"Aren't you the one usually _bringing _him up?" Glimmer counters.

"No, I . . ."

Marvel tries to cut in. "Guys?"

Glimmer and Clove are yelling at the same time now. I doubt they hear anything the other is saying.

"Guys?" Marvel tries again.

More yelling. More ignoring.

"_Guys_!"

"_What_?" Clove and Glimmer exclaim together.

Marvel subtly nudges his head.

In my direction.

I shove my back flat up against the rock, but it's too late.

"_Get her_!" one of the girls shouts.

"_Run_!" I hiss at Rue.

As I launch myself out of the water, my body screams its vehement opposition. My burns sting, but I imagine that they hurt less than a knife in the back of my head would. As my entire body comes out of the water and the sun beats down on my body, however, that becomes debatable.

I sweep up my bow and arrows from the shore, abandoning the jacket, and Rue and I take off towards the woods. A knife whistles past my ear, and the sound startles me. I duck, stumbling forward, but maintain my balance.

The Careers bark indecipherable things at each other, strategies as to how to catch us. I pound through the woods, Rue able to run in front of me, smaller and less injured, clutching her large knife.

I suddenly notice the footsteps behind me have softened. I realize it's because there are less footsteps behind me. I dare a peek over my shoulder. Only Clove is behind me now. As I look, she's just aiming a knife at me. From her gaze, I predict it's going toward the small of my back. No use in ducking that. Instead, I dive forward, taking Rue down with me, and we hit the ground with a thud, and the dirt scrapes painfully against my burns. A cry of pain escapes my throat as knife whizzes over us. In a second, we're on our feet again, but the interruption has allowed Clove to gain on us.

"Where'd the others go?" Rue pants.

"I don't know," I reply.

We reach a place where the woods have thinned out and where the trees aren't black and burned.

"Rue, the trees," I breathe at her. "You mentioned you could climb them, right?"

"What about you?" she asks concernedly.

"Don't worry about me," I command her. "Go."

She shoots me a wide-eyed look, but obeys. She picks up speed, running at one of the thicker oaks.

Before her path is blocked by the girl from District 4.

They slam into each other, toppling towards the ground.

I draw an arrow and, taking more precise aim than I had when Gale had been in a similar wrestling match, aim at the girl. I launch the arrow at the safest place to aim with least chance of harming Rue.

That just so happens to be District 4's head.

I don't keep watching to see where exactly the arrow meets her, but by the cannon shot, I can tell I've hit her somewhere effective. Rue climbs off of her, and then scampers up a tree, disappearing into leaves and out of view.

I hear the whistling again and duck right as another knife flies over me. _Geez, _how many did she have?

Out of both sides of my peripheral I see Marvel and Glimmer sauntering towards me. I don't bother turning to run the other way. That's where Clove is.

It would've been easy to run ahead of me. I'm wounded, after all.

Glimmer shoots me a deceptively charming smile. "Hey, 12!" she sneers. I just notice the sword in her hand. Marvel adjusts his grip on a spear, and I assume the Clove is retrieving another knife.

Anywhere I run, I could easily be taken out.

In fact, I could be taken out right now.


	22. Justification

Aww, do ya'll hate Clove just because she's beautiful? Teehee.

I might have updated this earlier today, but I saw the Doomsday episode of Doctor Who. My deep sorrow held me back.

No rights to The Hunger Games.

* * *

><p>"Wait!" someone shouts.<p>

Out of all the people to stop my slaughter, I wouldn't think it would've come in the form of Clove.

"Turn around, 12," she commands. "And if you even flinch at your arrows, you die."

I tighten my grip on the bow in my hand, but there's no way to reach for an arrow without one of the Careers spotting me. Obediently, I turn slowly to face Clove.

She smiles deceptively sweetly. "Hey, 12," she grins. "Where's your lover?"

"Friend," I correct her maliciously, though I'm not entirely sure anymore. We kissed, right? What was that supposed to mean?

Well, I guess there are bigger issues at hand.

"Whatever," she dismisses. "Where's he now? Lover's quarrel, or burned to a crisp?"

When I don't answer, she rears her throwing knife behind her head.

"I don't know," I bark at the looming threat. "I don't know where he is, alright? I wish I did."

She smirked. "He could've died in that fire, huh?"

Gloating. That's what Clove was doing. Enjoying the kill. No doubt she would be the one to perform it. This was probably revenge for Cato's death, and both Gale and I were being blamed. Revenge is ugly, I realized, whilst looking upon the anger and maliciousness and gross satisfaction clouding Clove's features.

"Did you leave him?" Clove prodded. "Did you disregard his life to get yourself out of the forest alive?"

"Shut up," I growl.

"Did you figure it was the Hunger Games, and that only one of you could survive anyway, and it might as well be him, and it might as well be now?"

"_Shut up_," I repeat more intensely.

"Hitting a nerve?" Clove teases, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I didn't leave him on purpose," I feel I should make clear.

"No," Clove says, "you just forgot about him, and chose to value your own life over his."

I don't answer.

Because honestly, isn't that what happened?

She let her words slip off her tongue, and they took on an almost sultry quality. "Who would've thought that poor, starving District 12 would be the home of someone so selfish?"

I clench my jaw.

"Sad, because, I mean, he did save _your _life after all," she continues.

"If you're going to kill me, get to it," I demand through my teeth.

Clove lifts a hand. "Patience, 12," she smiles. "We're building up to that. First I want to make you squirm."

"So you're just as cruel as those of District 1 are famous for being?" I taunt.

"You're in no position to poke fun at me right now," she brandishes her knife threateningly.

I resist rolling my eyes, but when I look above Clove's head, my gaze freezes.

Rue is in the tree right above Clove's head.

At first I want to scream at her for not scuttling away like I told her, but of course, doing that would give away her position. If either Marvel or Glimmer just shifted their gaze up, focused through some trees and branches, they'd see her.

But maybe they wouldn't.

Because maybe they'd be too distracted by the tracker jacker next in front of her, hanging precariously from the next branch over.

Clove is still talking, still gloating. As subtly as I can manage I plead with Rue to move with my eyes.

The disobedient girl instead flashes her knife to me.

Oh, no.

I snap my gaze back to Clove, willing her to look at me, look anywhere but up. When Rue begins sawing at the branch, I abruptly start talking over the noise it makes.

"_So_, what are you going to kill me with?" I decide is the best thing to say, which goes to prove my social skills.

Clove cuts off her speech and gives me a bewildered look. "Gee, I don't know, probably this knife I'm threatening you with?"

"Right," I mutter shortly. But Rue is still sawing, so I keep talking. "Is your beef _really _with me? I mean, honestly, it's not my fault Cato's dead."

"You provided the assistance," she told me.

"Yeah, Cato standing over me about to kill me," I say sardonically. "That totally qualifies as attempted murder. . . I mean, it does, but not on my part."

"If you hadn't been stupid enough to get into that situation, then Cato wouldn't have been in that situation either," Clove says hotly.

"How desperate are you to believe that what you're doing right now is justified?"

Clove looks as if I've just slapped her, so surprised that she still doesn't note the sawing noise, the increased buzzing sounds.

"Now who's hitting a nerve?" I jeer.

"You know what, 12?" she begins, taking a threatening step towards me. "We both know none of this is justified. We're murderers, aren't we? Us _and_ our district boys. So if I want an excuse for what I'm about to do that makes me feel okay with it for half-a-second so I can ram this knife in your chest, why don't you let me take it, alright?"

I'm shocked, and my face shows it. Clove's gaze flutters away from my expression, as if it pains her.

She holds up the knife again. As she does, I notice Rue at the very top of my range of vision. She looks frustrated. She knows all this sawing would take too long. Her time frame is closing. She looks at the damage on the branch she's inflicted so far, and then lifts her knife above her head. If this doesn't work, the sound would most likely resonate and she would be caught. Nonetheless, she poises the knife high above her head, mustering strength into her little arms.

Clove twirls the knife in her fingers, her face as blasé as if she hadn't just cracked her ruthless veneer.

"So before I kill you," she begins, her sultry quality returning, "I'd like to know, what's your name?"

"I'm Katniss," I tell her. "And this is Rue."

And the branch and the nest thud to the ground between us.

* * *

><p>~End of Chapter~<p>

Hope you enjoyed that. I also posted another Hunger Games fic the other day, a one-shot, if you'd like to check it out.

Have a lovely day! I do love you people dearly.


	23. Welcoming

No rights to The Hunger Games.

Last chapter I put something in author's note about Clove. I meant Glimmer. So there. That makes more sense now.

* * *

><p>I'm prepared for the wrath of the tracker jackers. Before the branch falls, I propel myself backwards. As it thuds against the ground, I turn and run.<p>

Glimmer and Marvel, close by and unprepared, are swarmed with the bugs before they attempt to trot blindly away.

I'm not spared. Soon enough, I feel sharp pricks in my neck and on my exposed arms, and a part of me regrets leaving the jacket by the water.

At first, it's just one sting. Then, I count another. And another.

Pretty soon I lose track.

How many stings does it take to cause dizzying hallucinations?

How many stings until it's fatal?

I keep stumbling away from the Careers and the tracker jackers. I don't feel any knives or spears in my back, so I assume they're busied by Rue's distraction.

_Rue. Where is Rue?_

Is this becoming a habit of mine? Forgetting people who I care about in order to save myself?

Wait. _Do _I care about Rue?

I decide I do, both out of obligation since she saved my life and her resemblance to someone else I care about, someone who reminds me how my situation could be worse.

Still, I don't know what's become of her. And still no word on Gale.

"_Katniss_!"

I spin sharply, hearing a familiar voice behind me.

"_Katniss, where are you_?"

I'm too eager to believe Gale is behind me, prodding through the leaves to reach me, but I'm still sane enough to know that tracker jacker poison is coursing through me.

The hallucinations. Have they started?

Gale's body emerges from the leaves, glimmering and appealing. I want to fall into him with relief, but some part of keeps me wary of my unstable mental condition.

"Look what I found in the woods!" Gale exclaims excitedly, his voice dreamy and resounding. He holds up a dead turkey in his clenched hand, holding it upside-down by the legs. "I think the mayor will pay a good price for this!"

Now, I know it's an illusion.

The mayor doesn't even_ like _turkey.

I try to stagger away from the painful illusion before the nostalgia wells up too much, but my leg wobbles as my foot hits the ground, shaky and unsteady. I push forward, leaning on trees for support.

"_Katniss_!" imaginary Gale calls after me.

I ignore him, force myself forward.

As time rushes forward in increments I've lost the ability to keep track of, my setting starts to fade and swirl. Trees begin bursting into ashes and settle in the ground, dissolving into wood floors.

Suddenly, I'm in my home in District 12.

My mom and Prim are there, looking sallow and malnourished.

My chest clenches. _Peeta was supposed to feed them. _

Would he lie to me about that? If he didn't want to feed them, why would he visit me at all and tell me he would?

I dash to what I perceive as the door of my house. As soon as I step out, I'm in the woods of the District, and there is Gale with that stupid turkey.

"_The Mayor will pay a good price for this_."

Reality tries to filter through to me and the woods are momentarily registered as the woods of the arena. I hear a cannon shot, and I wonder if I have died and not yet realized it. But then I hear another, and another, and twenty more, and I realize maybe there was no cannon shot at all.

Real vision flitters away again. I'm at the Mayor's doorstep with Gale and his unrealistic turkey. Madge opens the door.

"_Oh, hi you two,_" she greets cheerily. Her voice resonates and echoes.

Gale gives her a warm smile.

I remember this. This was the day of the reaping, but we didn't have a turkey. We had strawberries.

I have a friend back home, I suddenly recall. Her name is Madge. She'd barely crossed my mind in the past several days. I wonder how she's doing.

Then again, she's rich. The mayor's daughter. She's probably doing fine compared to the rest of the district.

Madge melts, her figure falling into liquid. Cato stands in her place, a sword gripped in his hand and a violent, fiery expression on his face. He lifts the sword across his body, his muscles tensing, and swings it at us.

I stumble backwards, and in the real world, my back slams into a tree. Something shakes loose from the branches of the tree. Another tracker jacker nest falls on top of me.

Wait, no . . . this isn't real.

Illusion and reality are blurring together more and more. I attempt to brush the probably-unreal bugs off my naked arms. A parachute drop in front of me and I lunge for it. When I open it, spiders dance out of it and join the other bugs crawling across me.

I manage to pick up the note in the parachute.

_Death welcomes you._

How convenient.

Because I welcome death.

. . .

_No_!

_No, _I remind myself. _It could be worse_.

I don't repeat the mantra to myself, lest it lose meaning. But I pound the message into me and I don't welcome death. I don't know that if I had welcomed it, it would've come, but I decide not to find out, and I fight to stay alive. I keep conscious, and the note dissolves in my hands and becomes worms, which join the creature party happening on my still-burned skin.

There's not much use running, and soon, thinking properly becomes a bigger stretch. I don't welcome death, though. I forget the words I would think in order to do so. My head becomes too crowded and I succumb to a world of unconsciousness.

Maybe death will welcome me there, whether I want it to or not.

* * *

><p>~End of Chapter~<p>

So yeah, I had a little bit of a field day with the hallucinations. Don't look for deep, story-related meaning in a lot of the stuff I put her hallucinating about.

Whilst writing, I recalled that I hadn't involved Madge in the story. So there's a little Madge for you.


	24. Decency

Wow, it's been a while. I've gotten more into non-fanfiction work, getting excited about the prospect of television writing, been kind of pulling away from fanfiction, but I don't think you actually care about my endeavors, so how about we get to the chapter now?

* * *

><p>No rights to The Hunger Games.<p>

I wake up, which is surprising enough in and of itself. But I'm in too much pain to be in heaven and I'm too comfortable to be in hell, so before I open my eyes, it's decided that I'm alive.

"You awake?"

I open my eyes and Rue's face is the first thing I see. She's leaning against a tree, patches of leaves sticking to her arms, obviously intentionally.

"Hi," I croak.

"Hi," she returns.

I try to move my arms, and I find them covered with leaves as well. A quick assessment of myself reveals that they're also pasted down my legs and neck.

"I think you can take them off now," Rue tells me.

"How long have I been out?"

"A day and a half. I found you here a few minutes after that ordeal with the Careers."

I bolt up, and my leaves crinkle. "_A day and a half_?"

She nods calmly.

". . . Wow," I breathe. "But . . . I was so burned and stung."

"If acted upon quickly enough, the stings are treatable," she tells me. "We have a lot of tracker jackers back home. I know how to deal with them."

We stare at each other for a while before I sputter out some sort of gratitude. "Well . . . thanks."

"Yeah."

I start peeling the leaves off my body. The skin beneath them is still raw and enflamed, and there are ugly bumps in certain places, and there's this searing sensation that I don't suspect will go away anytime soon. But I'm alive, so I guess I'm not complaining.

Then I think that there are others who may not be in the same state.

"The Careers," I say. "Did any of them die?"

She nods. "The boy. Marvel, I think his name was."

"Clove is still alive?" I ask, a little disbelieving. "But she was standing right there!"

"So were you."

"But I ran."

"So did she."

"But Marvel was farther away! How did he—"

"You know tracker jackers can fly, right?"

I sigh. Clove is still kicking, and now she probably has a beef with Rue and I. Fabulous.

"If it's been a day and a half, who else is left?"

"Clove, Glimmer, the redhead with the face from 5, you and your friend, and me and Thresh. He's my district partner."

"But . . ." I count for a moment. "But that means only Marvel has died for the past day and a half. The gamemakers are probably bored out of their skulls!"

"Probably," she agrees.

"The last time they got too terribly bored, they set the place on fire," I remind her.

"Yes, Katniss, I remember."

"We should do something about that," I suggest.

"Katniss, with that ordeal with the Careers, I think we've provided our part in terms of entertainment for the masses."

"That wouldn't stop them from killing us, would it?"

Rue scowls. "What would you suggest, then?"

I move my fingers experimentally and then outstretch my arm. The stinging is very bearable. I could probably walk and run and shoot easily enough if I gritted my teeth.

"Where did Glimmer and Clove go?" I inquire.

She points to her right. "That way. Opposite of the path to the cornucopia."

"I wish Gale was here," I say almost whimsically. "He'd probably have the right trap to put in their path."

"Are you fantasizing about a dreamy murder?" Rue frowns.

It's as if I brick was dropped into my stomach.

"I . . . I . . ."

"Oh, I'm not accusing you of anything," she clarifies quickly. "People in the arena . . . kids . . . that's what happens to them, I suppose."

My heart breaks for her.

She is twelve, and she's contemplating the effect murder has on children. As if she isn't one. And I suppose she isn't anymore.

"I think the gamemakers can keep entertained for a few more hours," I decide.

Rue smiles. Or rather, she curves her lips upwards, because that expression she gives me is does not make me feel the way a smile should make someone feel.

"Yeah, I guess they can."

If they have decency at all, I desperately hope they can.

* * *

><p>~End of Chapter~<p>

It's short. Disappointingly short. Sorry. There's a beat I'd like to hit next chapter, as in not during _this _chapter, so maybe next chapter around things will get more exciting. I don't think I've caused you readers enough pain yet.


	25. Mimicry

I haven't updated in a while, but last chapter was pretty . . . bad. Which would you rather have? Prompt, but unimpressive chapters or delayed but hopefully-less-unimpressive chapters? Does this sound like excuses? ...oops. I'm sorry, though! I'm sorry it took so long!

Anyway, finally, here's a chapter.

Oh, and thank you so much for your reviews. You guys are sweethearts. I hope you never get selected for child-on-child slaughter competitions.

* * *

><p>Rue keeps whistling. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because she's trying to avoid a question that she finds pertinent, but is too shy to ask me.<p>

"Are you okay?" she finally inquires.

She is twelve. I am sixteen, and I've done some extra maturing on the side. She should not be the one asking me that.

"Yeah. Fine."

"You're bleeding."

I glance down at my leg. A small stream of blood oozes out of it in a thin line just above my ankle.

"No big deal."

Rue tried to let the subject drop and we continue trudging forward. We've decided to seek out water and hunt game, avoid conflict for the time being. Her gaze shifts down to my leg and she brings the topic up again.

"You're limping."

"I'm fine," I say defensively.

"When it scratched you—"

"Bit! It bit me! That's worse!"

Rue flittered her gaze away, biting her lip.

"It . . ." Rue begins.

And a smile blooms onto her face when she finishes.

"It was a bunny."

"Rabbit! Rabbit!" I correct her loudly.

"…and it injured you."

"Rabbits are fearsome creautures! With teeth! Sharp teeth!"

Rue seems unable to hold back her laughter, and she claps a hand to her mouth in a terribly futile attempt to hide it. Her amusement catches up to me, and a smile plays the corners of my mouth. Seeing the beginnings of my acceptance, Rue drops her hand, and a toothy grin is displayed shamelessly across her face.

We laugh unreservedly and unashamedly.

About me being mauled by a bunny.

"Shh! Shh!" I try and suggest during my mirth. "We're scaring off game!"

"The bunnies know that you are hardly a threat to them," she laughs.

And I start up laughing again.

But really, I am bleeding. How is this funny?

* * *

><p>Once we've recovered from our reverie, we're back into hunting mode. It's been about six hours since our confrontation with the Careers and the sun is crawling back below the horizon. Or maybe the artificial light is being calibrated to a lower brightness level. Or whatever.<p>

We're hunting now. Or I am. Rue is from the agricultural district, and while I'm good at seeking out fruits and edible herbs, Rue is considerably better. She's already found a multitude of nuts, berries, and—

"Nightlock!"

Rue and I both exclaim the word together. She's just lifted a leaf, and a pile of nightlock, a berry that kills nearly instantly upon consumption, is stacked under a shrub in a neat pile.

I come up to Rue's side.

"So you know what it is then?" I ask.

"Of course I do. Nightlock. Deadly. It's common knowledge in 11. Is it not in twelve?"

"There aren't many berry bushes in the coal mines," I shrug.

Rue chuckles nervously.

"Someone knew what it was, though," I muse, observing the pile. "These berries were picked and stacked, like they were about to be eaten."

"Or as a trap," Rue ponders, "like they wanted someone to find it and eat it."

"A stack of shiny berries with delightful presentation," I say. "If someone didn't know what nightlock was, how could they resist?"

Rue looks up at me, her eyes big and curious. "Your district partner. Did he know?"

I start for a moment, caught off-guard by interrogation about Gale. "Huh?"

"Did he know about nightlock?"

"Yeah, we've seen it before in the woods back home," I tell her.

"So he could have set this trap?" Rue considers.

Almost like an instinct, I scan around me, a good three-sixty, as if he'd just be waiting in the underbrush for me to notice him, telling me off for taking so long to figure it out when I finally did.

"Setting traps," I say quietly. "That would be a lot like him."

"What's the deal with you two?" Rue asks.

I frown down at her. "The deal?"

"Yeah. I'm . . . I'm not really sure what you guys are towards each other."

"Really, Rue. Does that matter at a time like this?"

Rue gives a small shrug, but she's obviously still curious.

I sigh, bending over the berries. "I'm not sure."

It's almost as if I can hear Haymitch groaning. He was probably hoping I'd say something more romantic, like "he is a light within my . . . soul" or whatever lights up when you like a guy.

"I'm sorry he's here with you," Rue says with a sort of hesitant blandness, like I could choose to ignore her and she wouldn't take it personally.

"Could be worse," I reply with the mantra without looking back at her. I straighten up and brush dirt of my clothes. "So, the nightlock. We shouldn't eat that. Let's look for other stuff, shall we?"

Rue obliges, stepping in front of me.

"I think I should lead the way," I offer.

"No, it's fine," Rue assures me. "I'm following the mockingjays."

"Huh?"

"The mockingjays. I can hear them. I'm assuming that they'd congregate around food and water sources."

I look toward the treetops. "I don't see any."

"That's why you call them out."

Rue makes an "oo"-shape with her lips and lets out a four-toned whistle. It echoes back to her multiple times, coming from just ahead of us.

"See? Mockingjays. They do that. They mimic sounds."

"Yeah, there's one on my pin," I point out, tracing the edge of the token with my finger.

"It's pretty," Rue smiles, and props to any person on the planet who can resist smiling back at that girl. "Come on, I think there's something up ahead."

Rue begins to trudge ahead through particularly thick underbrush. I move to follow her. I take a moment to readjust my grip on the bow when I hear a loud mix between a scrape and a bang, like metal on metal. That sound alone, with its volume and swiftness, would've made me wince.

But not as much the shriek of pain that followed it.

I looked up at Rue, who was trudging through plants and leaves a moment before. Her back was to me, and her shoulders were tense, her fists were balled. Below her, a contraption of melted and cooled metal and wire big enough to trap a bear had been waiting under the cover of the plants and had dug its metal teeth into Rue's stomach and back, locking her in a deadly embrace.

The trap gripped her tightly, moved with her as she wobbled on her feet, and I rush to catch her as she topples backwards.


	26. Musicality

Fair warning, this chapter is pretty short. But I ended it where I wished to end it, and didn't want to go any farther just yet.

No rights to The Hunger Games.

* * *

><p>"Rue," I whisper to her as I guide her to the ground, the trap toppling horizontal with her, biting into her ferociously. "Rue, hey! Rue, are you alright?"<p>

Stupid question, really, but what else is there to say?

I flop down onto the ground to my knees, cradling her head in my lap. Her eyes are wide, watering with tears.

"Rue, hey, talk to me," I demand, a break forming in my voice.

"Katniss . . ." she forms the word and it's broken and pained and already sounds like dying.

"Rue, hey, stay with me," I tell her, the bubble in my throat more difficult to talk past.

"I don't think . . ." she trails off again.

I speak more urgently as she transcends farther and farther away from me. "Rue! No! Rue, come on!"

Rue's mouth opens, but she seems at a loss. What does one customarily say when they're dying?

She finds something.

"_Win_," she pleads quietly.

I'm crying now. Really crying. The lump in my throat bursts into sobs and my eyes well up with tears.

But Rue is calm, her eyes swimming, but not making a sob. Her face is a picture of acceptance and bravery. No fear. No disappointment. No anger.

"_You_ should win," I cry to her.

"Thanks," she replies with that heartrending quietude. "Hey, Katniss?"

I try to reply, but a choking sound comes out instead.

"Can you sing?"

I'm about to inform her "no," but then I realize it's not a question intended to deduce my opinion on my skill set. She's _asking_ me to sing.

Sing her . . . to sleep.

And I think of Prim, and all of those lullabies used for a similar purpose, and I truly don't feel 'm going to oblige.

But she's dying. Really dying.

She says nothing, her breaths become shallower, and before she goes, I make sure I sing.

And old lullaby that comes to mind . . .

Something to do with a meadow . . .

* * *

><p>Rue dies, leaving my world with the calmness and quiet strength she came into it with.<p>

I'd been playing along for so long, that I'd forgotten the exact inhumanity of these Games. It came back in a rush, my memories, my inability to see the reasoning behind it all, my sister almost coming into this place.

They're coming. They're coming to take Rue away.

I drag a hand across my damp face, and then rush towards some flowers nearby.

I have something in mind . . .

* * *

><p>I lower the three-fingered salute and saunter off, leaving Rue's decorated body to be apprehended by the Capitol, not thinking about what they might do with it.<p>

When I'd laced Rue's body with the flowers, I'd taken particular care to cover up the trap braced into her body. I hadn't been able to pry it off.

I take a moment to wipe off the blood on my hands on my pants, shuddering at the memory of the effort.

I could make connections, where traps might've come from, but I wasn't thinking clearly. I'd planned to let myself simmer for a while, get my thoughts back together.

But with one word from one particular voice, it comes rushing back to me.

"Katniss?"

No.

Not now.

"Katniss?"

I turn, slowly and not completely, my face a disgusting bit of rage and malice that most decent human beings would be ashamed of, that I don't want to reveal just yet.

He tries a third time to acquire my attention.

"Catnip?"

* * *

><p>~End of Chapter~<p>

See? Short.

Hey, how about I relate a song to this story.

VersaEmerge – Fire (Aim Your Arrows High), which I suppose relates to The Hunger Games in general.


	27. Confrontation

Good! You're still here.

No rights to The Hunger Games.

* * *

><p>The Capitol is watching me now. They must be. What could be more interesting than the things I could do to Gale right now?<p>

"Katniss, where have you been?"

"You know. Hunger games." My voice is steely and cold. I barely recognize it as my own.

He begins to approach me with his arms outstretched. "I've been—" He stops in his tracks when he sees me recoil from him. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

"I'm not dead," I inform him icily, "unlike some people we know."

Rue's body is gone by now, swept up by the Capitol ship.

"What do you mean?"

Gale's complete ignorance of the magnitude of this situation rubs me the wrong way. I turn to face him completely.

"Rue," I spit the word at him.

"What?" he frowns, perplexed. "The little girl from training?"

"Yeah." Something is very restrained in my bitter voice, but I'm not doing the best job in restraining whatever that might be.

"Oh . . ."

And for some reason, this infuriates me.

"_Oh_?" I echo disbelievingly. "She got caught in _your _trap, Gale."

There's a moment of quiet remorse, and it's gone in a heartbeat. He dares to say it again.

"Oh."

I suppose that's the last straw. I trudge up to Gale, shove a hand into his chest, and launch him backwards.

"_You killed her_!" I screech.

Gale stumbles backwards, maintaining his balance with irritating effortlessness.

"What?"

"You. Killed. Rue," I clarify, ice in my voice.

"You mean . . . did Rue get caught in my trap?" Gale asks.

"Yeah," I snap. "She did."

"Oh. Well."

His passiveness . . .

It's like he's doing this on purpose.

"_Are you not understanding, Gale_?" I yell. Full-blown, animalistic yelling.

"I . . . guess not," he frowns at my tone.

"Rue! She should've won. She should've won more than all of us combined, and you were the one who killed her. She was so young! She shouldn't even . . . she shouldn't . . ."

I trail off when a sob threatens. She's bleeding with Prim. I've constantly associated them with each other.

And Gale has killed one of them.

My anger is irrational, but most anger is, and I'm too angry to think about the logic of my rage.

"Katniss, I get she was nice and all," Gale attempts to calm me down, "but this is The Hunger Games. This is what happens."

"Not her," I cry, shaking my head. "Not to her."

"Yes. Even to her."

"Get away from me."

"_What_?"

"_Leave me alone_!" I shriek.

I try to leave it at that, turning and stomping through the woods. Gale follows without missing a beat.

"Katniss!" he trots in front of me to block my path. I stop to keep from barreling into him. "I didn't technically kill her. She waltzed into my trap. I didn't, like, set it for her or anything. It just happened. It didn't mean it to."

"But it happened," I bark. "It happened. You made it happen."

"I didn't make that girl walk into anything!" Gale argues, his frustration joining mine.

"You melted together the thing she walked into!"

"It happens, Katniss!" he shouts, throwing his hands into the air. "Some people walk into the things they shouldn't walk into."

"What if it had been me?" I hiss, close to his face by this point. "What if it had been me who walked into that trap? Would you be so passive? Would you be so quick to move on?"

This quiets him for a moment.

"That's what I thought."

I move around him, beginning to tromp off again. This time he doesn't follow, but he turns and shouts after me, "Katniss, we're supposed to stick together!"

"I've gotten by fine without you these past few days," I call back without looking at him.

"Can you look me in the eye and tell me that you haven't been on the lookout for me every second of it?" he challenges.

I halt in my tracks. I turn slowly on my heel to face him, now several feet away. I look him straight in the eye as I answer him.

"I haven't been on the lookout for you every second of it," I proclaim surely. "Part of it, I was unconscious as Rue tended to my wounds. Part of it, Rue was helping save me from Careers. Part of it, I was singing over Rue's dying body."

"I'm sorry, Katniss!" he clarifies. "What more do you want from me?"

"I don't want anything from you," I spit. "Not anymore."

I turn.

This time, he lets me leave.

The Games survivors stand:

Me, Glimmer, Clove, the girl with the face, Foxface, I suppose, Rue's district partner, Thresh, and Gale.

For the first time, through my ugly mercilessness and irrational anger, I actually consider that maybe I can and will win this.

* * *

><p>~End of Chapter~<p>

I brought up the word "irrational" a couple times to describe her anger because I think that's exactly what her anger is, and what I think most anger is. (SPOILERS) At the end of Mockingjay, I also think she's irrational. I suppose there are a lot of parallels to the Mockingjay situation. (END SPOILERS)

I thought about bringing out another tribute at the end of this chapter that overhead their yelling and, in Katniss's fury, she kills them dead in seconds, but then I looked back at how many tributes there are left, and there aren't many left to kill.

Anyway, I love you, bye.


	28. Investment

Decidely, I do not need Gale. Not to win and not to live. And Haymitch must be so displeased that I've realized this. The audience must me cursing me from the safety of their couches for ruining their precious couple that they'd been so emotionally invested in.

And I don't care.

A rabbit darts into my path just then. I kill it both for nourishment purposes and for reminding me of Rue. If it had been a tribute, I probably would do the same.

Because of my anger, not for nourishment.

My anger is not to a cannibalistic level.

* * *

><p>"We should just set them on fire once they are in close quarters again," Seneca says anxiously. "It's dramatically ironic and also puts an end to them swiftly."<p>

"No, we shouldn't!" Haymitch differs boldly.

"And why shouldn't we?!" Seneca exclaims. "Without each other, both tributes from 12 have nothing worth rooting for. The girl is distant and brooding and the boy's weapon killed the little one. The audience has ceased to care about either of them."

"The girl has a sister," Haymith reminds him. "Panem could do with some family values."

"We haven't heard about her sister since she took her place as tribute," he reminds him anxiously. "She wasn't interviewed about it at all. The audience probably doesn't even remember that she _has_ a sister."

"Her sister hasn't!"

"Mr. Abernathy, why would we put the desires of one girl over those of the entire country?"

Haymitch represses a look of stark horror rather easily. He's accustomed to the Capitol's misplaced priorities.

"Besides, it's probably for the best," Seneca decides. "They can't both survive. They had to have separated at some point. Now, they have. And now, we don't need them alive."

Haymitch clung to this.

"What if they could?"

"Huh?"

"What if they could both survive?"

Seneca frowns. "Haymitch, that's not how this works. There is one victor."

"You've just pointed out that the audience does not root for 12 as separates," he explains. "They root for them together."

"I am not obligated to play to your own favorites, Haymitch."

"Look at all the other kids! Do you think anyone will be pleased if the erratically violent girl wins? Or the strange-faced girl who barely says two words? Or the pretty one that people hate automatically for being pretty?"

Seneca meets his gaze levelly.

"President Snow will only accept one victor."

"A two-in-one victor is still a victor," Haymitch pleads.

* * *

><p>Five hours pass without being allied to Gale. I feel safer than I have for the entirety of the Games.<p>

I cook my rabbit meat in daylight, prepared to tear off in the other direction once it's cooked enough to eat since the smoke from the fire is a beacon. I'm tense, though, clutching my bow tightly with one hand.

Just then, the Panem anthem blares over the arena. I take it as a welcome distraction to my fire for the other tributes.

"_Attention tributes_," Seneca's voice booms across the forests. "_We have an announcement."_

I'd gathered.

"_There has been a carefully considered change of rules for the seventy-fourth Hunger Games,_" he gathers. "_Effective now, the top two tributes remaining at the conclusion of the Games will be named the victors._"

Are. You. Serious?

I don't listen to the rest of the announcement, the cordialities and niceties. I'm too stunned.

Just one day ago, I would've given my right arm for such a rule to be implemented.

Gale and I could win the whole thing together.

Then again, Rue and I could've won the whole thing together.

No, I realize. No, we couldn't have.

Why this timing? Why not announce this when the Games began?

Because it wasn't planned. This rule isn't for the Games.

The rule is for me. And Gale.

Was the Capitol so attached to our budding romance that they demanded action be taken once our ties were severed? I should be thankful. Or maybe even upset. But I'm conflicted.

I wonder what Gale is feeling at this moment. Should I go looking for him? Is he about to start looking for me?

I'm not going to go after him, I decide pretty quickly. In the whole scheme of things, he still killed Rue. And how would I just walk back into his life after the commotion I made with him?

But that doesn't obliterate the rule. What if Clove and I are standing side-by-side as victors in the end? I don't put it past her to wring my neck in the end anyway as to attain the glory of being the one and only victor.

What I think to do at the moment is stomp out my fire and dart off. I'm not entirely sure what to do beyond that.

* * *

><p>~End of Chapter~<p>

Please note that I understand that in the books the rule was that two tributes of the same district could win, but then I realized I didn't have anyone else besides Gale and Katniss that were in the same District. But I like this rule, too. I can work with it, right?

Also, I've decided that I'm probably not going to rewrite all books. I'm probably going to just address the first one and have the timeline extended a little beyond it.


	29. Impasse

I do just fine without Gale. I hunt well and come across water at nice intervals and don't even run into Careers.

I do run into someone, though. I'm walking through the woods, arrow at the ready, pointed out in pursuit of a bird I'd just seen. I walk on the balls of my feet, determined to keep quiet, when a heavy thumping completely blows my cover. I take a hopeful moment to consider that this might be a heavier, meatier animal, but that process is cut short when someone crashes into me. We topple to the ground, and I feel my arrow dig itself into the new arrival's stomach.

"Argh!" Foxface unleashes a pained cry as we land on our sides. Another one follows as I yank the arrow out. In my head, this swift action is a brutal thing to do, considering the pain involved. A second later, I realize I could have shoved the arrow in deeper and killed her.

As I think about this, we stare at each other for a while. Her expression is inscrutable. I hope my expression doesn't convey that I'm considering the consequences of killing her right this second.

But the new rule. Two tributes can win. Sure, the rule is meant for me and Gale, but it's not as if that was verbally specified. It's not a law that Snow is forcing me to adhere to. I can ally with if I want to. I don't recall her having any notable skills, but she must have something going for her if she's still alive.

We stare at each other for several seconds, neither of us saying a word. She ends up deciding for me. She hops up and scampers off, not looking back, still clutching the wound on her stomach.

Well, that alliance isn't happening.

* * *

><p>When not in the company of people, one has a lot of time to think. I think on Prim and my mother and even the blonde baker who told me he'd help take care of them. I wonder if he did.<p>

For some reason, I trust that he did.

I also wonder how Gale's doing. I assume he's doing fine without me. It's not as if he actually needs me to survive. He merely prefers having my around, as I do him.

…or, as I _did._

And my thoughts transcend to places less real, less potent.

I think of Prim's cranky cat. I wonder if it misses me. I promptly conclude it doesn't.

I think of my dead father. He was blown to bits in the coal mines of District 12. Would he approve of the decisions I've made here? I don't think on that too long. An uncomfortable mixture of grief and guilt begin to well up inside me.

I think of the different foods of the Capitol. There's a lot of flaws in the Capitol lifestyle, but wow, they're food is delicious.

So lost in my thoughts, I don't notice the bug that's crawling through the leaves I'm sitting upon. I don't notice until it struggles onto me and sinks its venom into my arm.

I don't try to contain my shriek. I swat the bug off my body and watch it thump onto the ground, roll over, and scuttle away. It's a big black thing, kind of resembling a beetle, with two sharp, black pinchers gleaming dangerously in the sunlight. Is it dangerous itself? I'm not sure. I've never seen one before.

Maybe if I wait and Haymitch doesn't send me parachute, the bite isn't poisonous. Then again, why would I have sponsors if I'm not falling into the romance that the viewers are longing for?

I could be dying, I realize.

* * *

><p>Gale thinks about Katniss often. Soon enough, guilt about what happened with her little tribute friend sets in. Of course it does. That's how these games work, isn't it? The winner gets riches and fame and a hefty supply of guilt and emotional trauma to sort through.<p>

As he reflects on his sins and wrongdoing, an announcement blares over the arena. Two tributes are permitted to win.

Horrible. Timing.

But welcome news, nonetheless.

He decides promptly that he doesn't care what Katniss's opinion on him is. He is going to find her again and he is they are both going to return home, he decides with more confidence than he actually feels.

He sets off with a renewed vigor in the direction he thinks he saw Katniss last.

"Catnip?" he calls into the forests sporadically for several minutes, hoping his call might be responded to. And it is responded to. But not by the right person.

"Aww, nicknames?" a voice jeers. "Adorable."

Glimmer and Clove emerge from the forest. The forest has yet to take its toll on Glimmer, who looks as beautiful as ever, and Gale nearly expects music to announce her arrival. Clove looks well for herself as well, but the murderous look in her eyes is rather distracting from her decent appearance.

Gale decides its pointless to try to form an alliance. They already have each other and he'd killed the brunette's District partner.

There's a knife in his pocket. He reaches for it…

…and comes up empty.

He'd set it on the ground before he'd set off in search of Katniss.

Gale looks to the weapons clutched in the hands of both of his competitors.

"Can't we talk this through?" he suggests pathetically.

The pair almost laughs.

Then they attack.


	30. Fairness

When I say "disappointingly short chapter" you say "Aww!" Disappointingly short chapter...! ..no, don't actually leave a review saying "aww."

Have I thanked you lovely people for your reviews recently?

Thank you lovely people for the reviews.

* * *

><p>In what feels like an hour, or what could be eight minutes for all I know, the bug bite begins to swell. That's not a good sign. A drowsiness comes over me. If I fall asleep, I could die. Or maybe I'm just getting tired? My mind flip-flops between "I would've been dead already if it'd been a concern" and "AHHHH I'M DYING." Ultimately, I don't reach a verdict.<p>

Seneca Crane decides for me.

His voice bellows over the speaker again and my breath catches. Is he repealing the two-winner rule? For some reason, that concerns me.

"Tributes!" he begins. "We have an announcement."

I gathered.

"Tonight, just before nightfall, there will be a feast by the Cornucopia."

Right. As the tribute count started to dwindle, they'd want to bring all of them together coax the action out of us. Of course, I want no part in dying gruesomely, so I choose to avoid it. I already don't plan to go.

"In the Cornucopia," Seneca continues, "we will place goods that each tribute might find useful. There will be bags marked with your district number and the items in the bag have been suited to meet a specific demand befitting each tribute."

Yep. This means I'm dying.

I am dying and whatever's in my bag will stop me from dying.

I look up to the sky trying to guess how much time I have until nightfall. I figure I have just enough time to make it to the Cornucopia if I get lost a few times along the way. The gamemakers would guide me if I went the wrong direction with sudden bursts of fire or random onslaughts of bear attacks. They wouldn't want a determined tribute missing the feast.

I get to my feet, taking a moment to examine the injury on my arm. It was probably planned by the gamemakers so I'd have something to desire from the Cornucopia. Not very fair, I think. Then again, I'm trapped in a government-funded, children-contested killing spree. "Fair" becomes rather relative.

I start to trudge in the direction I hope the Cornucopia is with a renewed vigor. I begin to wonder how I'm supposed to tell my bag from Gale's. They'd both have a twelve on them, wouldn't they? And then a much more pressing thought comes to me that concerns me so much that I forget I'm not supposed to care about it:

What does Gale have waiting for him in the Cornucopia?

This is the moment where I regret not staying with him, but it only lasts for a split second.

Gale. Feh. Gale who? Angst, frustration, etc.

I have essentially no obstacles on my way the Cornucopia. No tributes leap from the shadows and no animals claw out at my throat. I imagine everyone's being stealthy. Whatever is in that Cornucopia must have something to do with everyone's survival. They don't want to risk it just yet.

All except one. I approach a clearing, seeing the Cornucopia from the safety of the forests. I'm making barely any noise when suddenly, a figure blows past me.

I stumble over a bit, then refocus on Foxface darting out into the clearing. She makes her way to the Cornucopia, where a bunch of packs lay grouped together near the base. She grabs the one with her district number in one swift motion and doesn't stop or slow down as she disappears into the opposite side of the forest. Everyone is still anticipating and some haven't even arrived yet, I assume, and she's already gone.

Clever girl.

Now everyone present, hiding in the bushes and trees, is on their guard. No one dreams of taking on that approach now that it's been utilized.

I catch sight of someone across from me way on the other side of the clearing. It's Rue's district partner from what I can tell. I'd seen him during the trial practice.

I don't make out anyone else, but they're all there or trying to be.

Gale's there. Gale's somewhere.

I've been bitter and grumpy about him for a while now, but now, when the possibility is so present and so likely, I know that I don't want him to die.

But I didn't want Rue to die.

Also, I don't want to die either.

And when it comes down to it, I don't want anyone in this arena to die.

And it hits me how many of us are probably about to.


	31. Feast

It's silent for an uncomfortably long time. Life-saving items just lay there in the Cornucopia, waiting for us to snatch them up.

I've predicted that the first person after Foxface to run for the pile will die, and I guess that everyone else will assume such as well. Someone incredibly stupid will probably be the first to have a go.

Naturally, I assume Gale will be the first out.

Minutes pass. Several minutes. I feel weaker, and I assume the poison is taking effect. I don't know how much longer it will be until the poison kills me.

I wait for Gale. I still presume he'll be out next. Not just because I assume his recklessness, but he's probably made up a crazy scheme that justifies to himself running out there to almost certain death, like some greater good or whatever.

Still, he doesn't come.

What if . . . what if he's dead? What if he can't?

I haven't been awake for many of the displays splayed across the sky and cannon shots. What if I missed his death?

A far-off rustling snaps me back to the current events. I scan the surrounding forests and there, to my frontal-right, a figure limps toward the Cornucopia.

It's Gale.

_Oh, Gale._

He's covered in blood. I'm not even sure where his wounds are or how many he has. From what I can see of his face, he looks tired, resigned. His justification to himself in stumbling toward the Cornucopia first is a last-ditch attempt at survival. He knows he can't go on much longer like that.

I freeze at the sight of him. I'm so shocked at his appearance that I fail to notice that at nearly the same moment, from the other side of the clearing, Clove has dashed out. She's severely burned down the left of her face and the sleeves are singed off her shirt, revealing severely burned arms. They were no worse than mine, but she doesn't have Rue.

My gaze flicks to her for moment, and then back to Gale. He looks up at the stomping of her booted feet, and then returns quietly back into forest.

A rock flies toward Clove's head from somewhere in the forest. Thresh, I assume. Glimmer probably allied with her, it wasn't me or Gale, and I doubt Foxface would have the strength to lift a rock that size. Clove dives, narrowly avoiding contact with the threat. She digs her toes into the dirt and propels herself forward, ungracefully finding her feet again and proceeding to snatch up a pack with her District number emblazoned on it.

Thresh has darted out to join her. From his sallow face, I assume malnourishment is what brings him to the feast. There's a large knife in his hand, but he doesn't go for Clove. He trudges toward his District bag. But Clove goes for him. She rears a knife I hadn't realized she was holding and it flies toward Thresh's head. It skims the side of his head, drawing blood just above his ear.

Clove is close to him now, not having lost her running pace, so when Thresh's fist flies out blindly, it makes contact with the side of Clove's head. She wails in pain and, digging her nails into Thresh's arms, she drags them both to the ground. A wrestling match ensues.

Gale emerges from the forest again, dragging his feet forward. He's hoping the scene will occupy anyone else's attention.

He's deluded. I spot a mass of blonde to my far left. Glimmer tenses at the sight of him, seeming shaken by his presence. It must be partly because of her that Gale's in his state.

"_Argh_!" Clove's strangled cry echoes through the clearing. It once again occupies Glimmer's attention. And mine.

"Did you kill the girl!?" Thresh demands, pinning her down beneath him. Even starving and tired, he's significantly stronger than Clove.

Rue. He means Rue.

"I've killed lots of girls," Clove's voice drips with ruthlessness.

I look back to Gale, Rue's actual killer. He's grimacing with the effort of stumbling forward. He has no weapons. If someone decides to attack him, he will probably be dead in a second.

Clove, benefitting greatly from Thresh's fatigue, manages to wriggle one arm out of his grasp. She reaches to where her thrown knife had fallen, and then drives it into his left shoulder. His cry of pain makes me wince. Gale even pauses in his struggle to walk to cringe at the sound.

Clove tries to kick him off, but even with one arm rendered powerless, he's still the stronger of the two.

Gale is nearly to the bags, and hope glimmers at his eyes as he comes to realize the proximity. I'm holding my breath by now, gripping my bow until I'm white-knuckled.

At this point, I assume that Clove's been sent to do the dirty work when it comes to the feast. Clove gets the pack and faces the battles while Glimmer waits in the wings, but they're both smarter than I give them credit for.

So caught up in Clove and Thresh and Gale, I've forgotten Glimmer's watchful eyes, that she's capable of attack.

I see her emergence from the forest, her walk sultry and deliberate and showy. There's a cocky smirk on her lips as she approaches Gale's stumbling body. She clutches a sword in her hand as she makes his way towards him. Gale sees the looming threat as well, but just keep trudges. He's weaponless. He's too weak to run. He just walks, not changing direction or speed.

Glimmer does much the same, but her walk is much more impressive. They advance on each other, meeting in front of the Cornucopia. Once they're about to run into each other, Glimmer speaks.

"Hey," she greets simply, confidently, and then she rams the hilt of her sword into his temple. He flops to his side pathetically, his right arm stretched up beneath him, his left limp over his body. He makes no effort to fight.

"I thought we took care of you," Glimmer muses, twirling her sword around a bit.

Gale responds, "I thought you were hot."

She scowls. "Clove might be a little upset," she informs him, ignoring the comment. "She wanted to take part in your death."

"The thin layer of blood cover my body implies that she has," Gale points out.

"But she'd want the deathblow," Glimmer explains, "but she's obviously a bit busy." She brandishes the sword grandly, and then aims it at Gale's vulnerable chest. "I guess the honor goes to me."

This is it, a realize. Gale's death. The thought chokes me, and I momentarily struggle for air.

She rears the sword. As he arm rears backwards, I find my arm doing the same, my other arm straightening out. My fingers release a bow into the air.

I'm dazed for a moment, my vision blurred by the shock of Gale's death. When my vision refocuses, I scan for my bow.

In the rearing of the sword, Glimmer's body had angled toward me, exposing her chest.

The arrow now juts from it.

Her eyes grow wide. She doesn't turn toward me, but she knows who's responsible. Gale's lips part, gathering in the information, deciding who must be responsible. His eyes follow Glimmer as she falls sideways. She does not buckle or crumple. She falls at once onto her side, her eyes open and lifeless. Gale keeps staring.

A cannon fires and pulls him from his trance.

He looks toward where he has guessed I am, nearly hidden among the trees. I make no effort to move or hide. I regard him stoically, and he regards me in what looks like shock. The look eventually dissolves, and his look of seriousness nearly mirrors mine.

Gale gets to his feet with considerable struggle. He's quicker than before as he limps to the bags marked with our District numbers. He takes them up with one hand and they hang at his side as he ambles toward me.

Clove and Thresh have left. I don't know what became of them.

Once he's only a few feet from me, he speaks the first words he's said to me in so long. "Hey, Catnip," he greets through labored breathing.

I nod curtly.

"Here." He lifts one of the bags to me. "Make sure that's yours."

I take the bag from him and pull it open. It's some sort of cream. Something for cuts and wounds.

"This is yours," I look back up to Gale.

He's wobbling on his feet now, his eyes unfocused. I'm not sure he hears me. Suddenly, he loses his grip on the ground and starts to tumble forward.

"Gale!" I rush forward, putting a hand to his chest to block his fall. He comes to.

"Sorry," he strains, putting a hand on my shoulder in attempt to lift himself back to his feet.

I'm not leaving him here. Not like this. I place a hand around his waist and help him stumble back into the woods, where it's safer. Not safe. But safer.

Just like old times.

* * *

><p>I've seen bits of the movie again and the movie helps me write, so hooray!<p>

Anyway, you know that thing I said about the storyline continuing a little past the timeline of the first book and then ending? Well, I was thinking, and that still leaves a lot of unanswered questions. You get the did-people-survive, if-so-are-they-together, is-she-with-the-other-guy stuff (God willing, if it doesn't get mucked up or I'm not rendered incapable of writing or something), but what about the Games in general still existing, and I thought I had more large reasons but that's pretty much the biggest one, so FYI, I yet again don't know when this story will end. Bleh.


	32. Full Circle

Gale strains to keep upright even with me helping prop him up. To be fair, I drag him for an obscenely long time, but I wish to be sure that we're far from any other tributes before he and I let our guards down to apply our medicine. When my knees begin to buckle from dizziness and the poison coursing through my body becomes evident again, I decide we've come far enough.

Gale and I topple forward, and he does a pathetic flop onto his chest. I manage to stick my palms out and catch myself. My head nearly slams into a large rock and, resting my knees on the ground, I flip Gale over and hoist him up to lean against it. His eyes flutter through the whole ordeal. I reach into the bag tangled disgracefully around his arm and pull out his designated medicine. It's some sort of cream, and I don't think much about it.

I unscrew the lid, take a generous amount from the top, a smooth it across the length of Gale's arm. He winces initially, and then relaxes, letting out a hissing breath from between his teeth.

"Thanks," he manages to groan.

"You've lost a lot of blood," I point out, in case he wasn't aware. "You should rest for a while."

"How many of us are left?" he asks in a voice resembling a gargle.

"Four," I tell him distantly, maneuvering to his other side to apply medicine to his other arm.

"Then it seems like I won't have much time to rest."

"Well, try."

I shift my body down, ignoring how my vision seems to have gotten hazier. I pull up the shredded remains of his pant leg in order to better see the injuries there. He winces again as I apply to cream, but the relief he feels is evident on his face.

"What is it with _you_?" he asks, lifting his face toward the sun with closed eyes, basking in the liberation from pain. "What's your problem that you risked your life to fix?"

"Some bug poisoned me," I tell him, roughly guiding my entire palm down the length of his legs.

"You might want to take you medicine, then, Catnip," he suggests with a smirk.

"I'm busy with you."

"You're not much used to me dead. Come on." He opens his eyes, reaches down for the bag I dropped and rummages. A frown crosses his features. He searches for a while before his fingers finally find something. "Here we go," he proclaims, fishing a small pill from the sack. "Take it."

I decide he's right and reach for the pill.

"Wait!" he holds the pill out from my reach. "Don't touch it! Your hands are covered in some weird Capitol medicine. And my blood."

"Well, how would I take it without holding it?" I beg the question.

He rears his hand back, and I get the message. I roll my eyes a little, but ultimately oblige, tilting my head back and slackening my jaw. Gale tosses the pill into the air and it lands in the center of my tongue. I swallow it dry and Gale grins.

"It's like us with berries back home," he recalls.

The effect of the pill is immediate. Already, the world seems like it's clearing up. The second head Gale seemed to have sprouted dissolves, so that's a good sign.

Gale cranes his neck behind him at some bushes. With his tender arm, he reaches behind him and plucks a berry off a bush. "Let's try some more," he suggests enthusiastically, seeming so excited just to have me back and present, wanting to do the most mundane things with me.

He launches the berry into the air, and as it glints in the daylight and I get a good look at it, my jaw stays decidedly closed. I swipe it out of the air and hold it up for him to see.

"Are you trying to kill me, too?!" I exclaim.

His eyes widen at the accusation. "Huh?!"

"_Nightlock_," I clarify, holding the deadly fruit out to him. "Are you aware of how quickly this would kill me?"

He withers, ashamed. "Sorry."

"Although," I rise to my feet and make my way to the berry bushes, shoving handfuls into my pockets, "maybe we can use these later." They berries seem keen to fall out, so I prod at them a little, hoping they'll stay. I return for Gale's medicine, kneeling my his head to treat his facial wounds.

"Hey, Catnip?" he begins apprehensively.

"Yeah?"

He echoes me, "'_Are you trying to kill me, too'_?"

"Oh. Yeah."

"I didn't kill Rue," he reminds me. "Not directly."

"I know."

"Do you forgive me?"

"For the thing you _didn't do_?" I press with a hint of resentment that I really should work on.

"Yeah," he confirms in utter seriousness.

I think for a moment, applying the cream to a nasty cut above his eyebrow.

The same instant I say it is the same second I decide it.

"Yeah, I do."

And it's like a weight floats off my shoulders. I come to realize that I've never forgiven anyone before. I never thought I needed to. But if this is what it feels like, I decide, I should take up the practice. It's like releasing a breath I've held for years.

Gale cracks a smile, and his teeth grin through the mask of blood on his face.

"But that doesn't mean anything," I clarify, "other than forgiveness. That doesn't mean I . . . I don't want to . . ."

"I understand," Gale assures me, and I know he does. He'll allow me time when I want it, but he's so pleased that I see him in a positive light again.

I finish with the medicine, and here we are, health issues straightened out, allied again without having to say it. It's so comfortable and wonderful I want to pass out, which doesn't make much sense, but it does to me, and if I'd vocalize it, it'd probably make sense to Gale as well.

"Hey, Katniss?" he says.

"Yeah?"

"This is the rock. The smooth rock from the first day."

I glance back at the rock. He's right. It seems we've come full-circle.


	33. Darkening

I do a lot of arguing with myself in the passing moments. Do I really forgive Gale? Upon further examination of myself, I'm not so sure. Is forgiveness a decision? A feeling? An emotion? Is it conscious or does it just strike people when they're ready? It felt good to tell Gale I forgave him, and I had been aware of the relief our audience must feel as I was saying it, but was I being honest? Was it right to forgive him?

I don't divulge these thoughts to Gale, but I know he must be aware I have them. We sit in the clearing for a while, and every now and again, he'd give me a sidelong look tinged with remorse, his downturned mouth betraying his knowledge of my turmoil. He doesn't press it, though, and for that, I am grateful.

I still treat Gale civilly despite my feelings. I still want us to win together. What kind of person would I be if I didn't snag the opportunity to bring another contestant home alive? Not that I'm thrilled about my character as of late, but my morality hasn't regressed _that _much, I hope.

We're aware that the finale approaches. Gale, who possessed the backpack at the time of our initial parting, hunted decently during our separation. He's stored up enough food and shares with me, so there is no need for us to hunt for more together.

So, we wait. Gale leans against his rock, his legs straight out in front of him as he heals, one crossed over the other. I sit cross-legged directly in front of him, twirling the end of one of my arrows, avoiding eye contact.

"What do you think it'll be?" Gale poses the question, and I don't have to ask what he's referring to.

"I hope there's not more fire," I express with a groan.

"How was it after the fire?" he asks.

"I was fine," I tell him, "with Rue's help."

He lowers his gaze morosely. "Right."

_Do I forgive him? Do I forgive him?_

"What about you?" I ask in order to move the conversation along. "How'd you make out?"

"Decent," he reminisces, biting off a hunk of a piece fruit I'd deemed safe for consumption. "I found a hole and got in it. After the flames died out, I mostly hunted and set up traps. Then I ran into the duo, and blood and such, and now I'm here."

I don't know how to respond to that. I nod, and continue fiddling with the arrow. I don't know whether or not I mind the idle waiting for the finale. The anticipation is painful, but I imagine it's not as painful as getting a knife in my skull from Clove's collection.

"Katniss?" he says suddenly, and an edge in his voice communicates he's about to say something he's been wanting to say for some time, something he's stopped himself from saying who-knows-how-many times in the past few minutes. He doesn't even employ his nickname for me.

I look up from my arrow and force my gaze to meet his. "What is it?"

"Look, I get that we both have a chance," he begins, the tremor not leaving his usually strong and steady voice, "and that we both might make it home, but I'm just saying that if we don't—"

"Gale, don't." I'm not in the mood for this. I will never be in the mood for this.

"No, just listen to me for once, okay?" he pleads. "I know you're still markedly upset with me, and I understand. I do. I'm sorry for what happened with Rue. I'm sorry that we're even here. And I'm also sorry I didn't tell you this sooner."

"Tell me what?" I prod, the words barely carrying on a shallow breath.

"Katniss, I—"

He stops suddenly, because night falls.

We're accustomed to the darkness, but night almost _literally _falls, like a thick sheet of light's absence just descended on the arena, plunging it into almost total darkness. I no longer see Gale. I lift my hand and wave in front of my face. I do not see it.

"Katniss?" Gale calls out to me softly, our volume seeming amplified in the utter darkness.

"I'm here," I assure him, instinctively reaching out for him. He catches onto my wrist, and I feel him sigh with relief, loosening his grip until his hand falls into mine. We cling to each other there.

"It's starting," I say shakily.

"Yeah," he agrees, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze.

With my free hand, I return the arrow to its quiver. I could be on guard, but by no means do I want to let go of Gale, and it's not like I can aim very well in the darkness.

"What do they expect us to do?" Gale whispers, the darkness still encouraging a quietness in him, "if we can't even see each other?"

As if on cue, a loud, resounding click resounds through the arena. As it echoes, a light descends as quickly at the darkness did, like turning on a spotlight. I see it far off through the trees, and I predict it's near the sight of the Cornucopia. The light seems shockingly bright, but I still can't see Gale, as if the light waves just stop traveling at a certain point, refusing to give sight to anyone outside its circle. The Gamemakers beckon us towards the light.

How ironic.

"We don't have to go," Gale says, still keeping his viselike grip on my hand. "We don't have to _see_ to survive."

It seems the arena is cued up to challenge Gale's determination, because just then, we hear a low, animalistic snarl. It's closer than we'd like to think.

"Well," Gale mutters resignedly.

I stand wordlessly, dragging Gale up with me. We've mutually decided to keep quiet as to not spook any creatures nearby. We take delicate steps, balancing on the balls of our feet, keeping hold of each other like our lives depend on it.

We move together toward the light, in no hurry, for our deaths could very well wait there.

Eventually, Gale moves in front of me, taking the lead, pulling me along. He thinks he's acting chivalrously, but whatever animal is threatening us could very well attack us from behind. I decide not to mention it.

We reach the edges of forests and I can clearly see the extent of the lighted area. The light still doesn't brush Gale and me, still not spreading as light tends to, but instead ending hard-edged in a perfect circular shape.

Clove and Thresh aren't in sight. I scan the beam's circumference, seeking out faces or bodies.

That's when a snarl rips through the darkness behind Gale and I, and an animal springs to pounce me.

It's paws catch my shoulderblades and shove me to the ground. I manage to stiffen my arms and catch myself on my palms. I roll over onto my back just as the animal comes at my face. I grab it by its furry throat, forcing it away from me. It gnashes at my face. I feel its hot drool drip against my cheek like sweat.

In the struggle, I get a good look at the creature's eyes.

They're exactly the same as Rue's.

It clicks in my mind. Capitol-engineered beings for the Games especially for the final showdown. Mutts. Engineered or not, the eyes are jarring.

Gale joins the fracas, shoving all of his weight against the mutt, which shifts off me enough for me to rise to my feet. Sensing where I am, Gale grabs me roughly by the arms.

"Run!" he shouts, abandoning stealth.

We charge toward the light, which I hope isn't as foreboding as it sounds. Plenty of trees and limbs slap and tear at us along the way. We break through the edge of the forests, and then cross the border of the circle of light.

Gale drags me along, pulling me toward the Cornucopia which hopefully contains some safety. At the silence behind us, I stop him.

"Wait, wait!" I dig my heels into the ground.

Gale turns and follows my gaze. We turn together, and he keeps hold on one of my arms with both of his.

I can barely make it out, with the sheet of darkness and all, but at the edge of the wall of light, the mutt with Rue's eyes lingers, regarding Gale and me ravenously.

"It can't get through," Gale concludes with wonder. "They're programmed to avoid light."

"It's how they're going to drive us all here," I infer, breathing heavily from the sprint. "We're sitting ducks."

"Don't go towards the light," Gale adds dryly.


	34. Addition

Gale and I stand back-to-back, keeping an eye out for Thresh and Clove's arrival. A disarming quiet consumes the arena, interrupted only by the sinister growls of unseen mutts and Gale and my shallow breaths and light steps. We move in circles, scanning as much of the arena as our gazes allow while still maintaining carefulness.

"Where are they?" I whisper. It's just loud enough for Gale to hear me, but it sounds almost deafening in the disorienting quiet.

Gale doesn't answer at first, still looking over the forests.

Clove answers for him.

With a primal shriek, no stealth involved whatsoever, she dashes into the barrier of light from the opposite side coming straight for Gale and me.

"Here we go," Gale says dryly. I take aim with my arrow. He lifts his fists in front of his face. He doesn't have ridiculous advantages when it comes to brute strength, but he's not exactly _dis_advantaged. I take a moment to pray his strength doesn't fail him.

I let the arrow loose toward Clove without hesitation, proving how far my ethics have fallen. She sidesteps it easily, reeling a knife behind her head.

Gale and I duck at precisely the same instant. The knife _whoosh_es over our heads. I dig my toes into the ground and stand up and take off running in a single motion. I run towards Clove swiftly enough so she doesn't have time to take direct aim with a new knife, wrap my arms around her waist, and drag her lean figure to the grass. He _oof_s as her back hits the ground. A second later, her knife is in my back.

I don't recognize my shriek as my own. The knife bites into my shoulderblade, and I can feel it shoving deeper in side. Through my pain-spotted vision, I can see Clove smile at my animalistic sound.

She could have just taken the knife out and shoved it in somewhere more vital and I'd be dead, but she was distracted by the satisfaction of my pain. It's helpful, since it averts my death, but it doesn't comfort me.

Then, Gale's foot slams into the side of Clove head, and her smile disappears.

Gale kneels down and wrenches the knife from my back. I scream, but the pain subsides quickly. I feel the warm blood slither down my back, but I doubt the wound is fatal enough to need immediate attention.

Gale takes the knife, wet with my blood, and brings it down the Clove's dazed figure. Apparently, she's not as dazed as I thought, because she manages to move her head out of the way. The knife digs into the earth.

She digs her heels into the ground, then pushes, sliding out from under me. I try to tackle her, pin her down again, but she shakes me off, getting to her feet.

"You know," she begins, her voice reminding me of slick tar, "we could still win this thing. You and I."

I blink. I hadn't even fathomed that I could win with someone who wasn't Gale. I imagine Clove and I standing side-by-side as victors with the Capitol cheering around us. I want to gag, not out of contempt for her, but out of the wrongness of it.

But in this image, I am alive.

"Or you, pretty boy," she turns to Gale. "We could take this together, you and me."

"Forget it," Gale spits a second later, and I feel horrible for my split second hesitation at the offer.

I am an utterly contemptible friend. Contemptible human being. I take out my sudden bout of self-loathing on Clove, raising another arrow toward her.

My aim is sloppy, and she dodges the threat easily.

"Your loss," she mutters, and turns and takes off running toward the Cornucopia.

I'm about to pursue, but a resonance of snarling sounds behind Gale and me. We turn simultaneously, but we can barely see past the sheet of darkness beyond the circle of light. A hand, bent and clawed, breaks the boundary and digs into the ground of the lit circle. It's Thresh's hand, and he struggles to pull himself into the light.

The hand, bloody and injured, is dragged away fiercly, the fingernails etching marks into the ground, and the arm loses the safety of the circle. A rasping scream resounds through the arena, followed shortly by a cannon firing.

With that, Thresh is dead.

I feel a swelling of relief that I didn't have to kill him.

"Three left, right?" Gale asks me, sounding a bit breathless although viewing that was less exertion than other things we could be doing. "I haven't been keeping track. I keep finding myself barely conscious."

I haven't been attentive either, but I'm about to confirm this as my best guess when I catch sight of Clove by the Cornucopia.

She's talking to it.

From my angle, I can't see into the centerpiece of the circle. Clove lingers on the edge of it, seeming to speak into it.

"What's she doing?" I squint.

Gale narrows his eyes at the spectacle. He steps in front of me. At first, I think he's trying to seem protective. I'm about to point out that this is stupid, since I'm the one with the larger weapon. Then, I realize he's trying to get a better angle. I follow his lead, trailing after him in attempt to get a better look at what Clove is up to.

Clove probably hasn't been unconscious or otherwise out of sorts as much as Gale and I have. She would've been alert, so she would've kept track of her competitors and who was dead or alive. Her attention to her competition would also turn her on to their strategies, so she would've known where they were likely to be if a circle of safety limited their options.

I make my way around the Cornucopia, and it's opening is revealed to me.

She was so good, I think, during these games. Falling off the radar almost entirely, so much so that I'd neglected to even notice that she was alive. I stare at her, impressed for longer than necessary.

Inside the Cornucopia, Foxface meets my eyes.


	35. Bend

A/N: God bless you for dealing with my flaky updating, those of you still here.

* * *

><p>I remember a time when I was a younger and hungry, so <em>hungry<em>. My family hadn't eaten anything substantial in a particularly long stretch of time. I decided to get up achingly early in the morning to see if I had a better chance of finding game. It was raining in sheets and colder than I ever remembered it being. Regardless, I caught a wild turkey, which either attests to skill or the stupidity of that turkey or some third thing out of my control pulling the strings.

I was weak with malnourishment by that point, absolutely famished, and the weight of the turkey felt like a sack of bricks, but I was determined to make it home to my waiting family.

From the forests to my home in 12, there are two strikingly similar bends in the road. I was under the impression that I'd bypassed the first one, so when the second one came into view and I came to realize I had twice to distance I'd anticipated left to walk, it was like getting punched in the gut.

Suddenly, the malnourishment and coldness and wetness and exhaustion seemed to dawn on my all at the same time, and my knees buckled beneath me, my dead turkey making a squelching sound as it hit the ground.

It had worked out eventually. Gale found me and helped drag me home, carrying me the last stretch of it, all the while muttering how if I wanted to squeeze in some extra hunting, I should've come and found him.

The feeling I got when I saw the second bend in the road is strikingly similar to the one that comes over me when I see Foxface living and breathing.

I'd thought Gale and I were _this close._

And now something we should've expected stands in our way.

Gale and I watch Clove and Foxface talk, Clove presumably offering up an alliance. Clove and Foxface don't exactly seem like likely companions, but Clove's options are limited now, and two of us have to win and she seems out of tribute friends.

Gale puts a hand on the small of my back and urges the both of us forward. I tighten my grip on my bow and follow his lead, walking on the ball of my feet.

From a distance, I see Foxface's expression, conflicted and antsy. Either Clove reads something in her expression as rejection or she grows impatient, because the next moment, there's in knife in Clove's hand slashing toward's that foxlike face.

Foxface hurtles at the ground and rolls under the blade, rolling nimbly to her feet and tearing off in the opposite direction. Of course, trapped in the light, she's out of hiding spots now, so her previous strategy is out the window. I notice for the first time that there's a small axe in her hand, which I doubt she ever intended to use and is probably just with her as something of a security blanket to make her feel safer.

Foxface stands adjacent to Gale and I, Clove still at the mouth of the Cornucopia. We form a triangle, scanning each other, waiting to see who will make the first move.

Clove and I are the ones with the range weapons, so I'm guessing it will be us.

Blood still oozes down my back from where Clove stabbed me. It hurts my arm to put the bow in ready position. A hiss of pain escape my teeth as I raise an arrow at Clove.

She tenses, probably calculating the exact moment she ought to run.

I'm probably not going to hit her, I realize. She knows how to run out of the way of an arrow.

But Foxface knows how to run, too.

I lower the bow.

I'm legitimately not sure what to do now.

Gale offers no help. He isn't sure, either.

Our of my peripheral, I notice Foxface glance down at her axe. I wonder for a moment if she's considering just killing herself.

I think that's stupid of her. She's two people away from a winning spot. From her position at that exact moment, things couldn't get very much worse. Why would she possibly want to-?

I'm still demeaning her intelligence inwardly when I register a knife jutting from her skull.

Whatever she was thinking of, and I can't be sure of what that was no matter how judgmental I become, it ends there.

Her goes wide, then unseeing, and then flutter closed. She crumples to the ground in a heap.

I'm prepared to wait for the cannon fire, but Gale is smarter than that. Less than a second after Foxface's death, I feel Gale tugging me roughly in his direction. I barely stumble out of the way of a knife meant for my skull. The one meant for Gale clips my ear.

I hiss in a breath. Clove's quick with those knives.

"Sorry," Gale mutters, as if it's his fault.

And that's when the circle goes out.

The sanctuary of protection vanishes in a disorienting moment, and the three remaining tributes are thrust into darkness.

I'm blind for a distressing few seconds, but eventually, my eyes adjust.

And so the mutt's.

I hear their snarls and their teeth mashing together, and again, it is Gale who brings me to action.

"Go!" he urges, wrenching on the hand he already grips.

We sprint towards the Cornucopia. Clove gets a significant head start, since she's closer to it, but Gale and I are faster. The three of us reach the Cornucopia at almost the same time, and the mutts are close behind. Gale helps boost me onto the surface, grabbing me by the waist and hoisting me up. I spin quickly on my stomach, reaching down for him. I pull his arm in a way that causes my injured shoulder to protest. I ignore it, biting down on my lip till it draws blood.

"Duck!" he yells at me, and I follow his order without a thought, lowering my face into our clasped hands in time for a knife to whizz over me.

Gale swings his leg over and scrambles to his feet, helping me up along the way. Clove has already found footing, and now stares us down, a cold, calculating stare, deciding which of us is to die. Below us, mutts bark and claw, attempting futilely to find it in their genetic composition the muscles and knowledge to climb.

She grips her knife tightly, holding it out in front of her as a dare rather than rearing it behind her head as a threat. It must be her last knife. Gale begins to step toward her with the knife he retrieved from my back, but Clove adjusts her footing accordingly to his movement, holding the knife a tad higher. Gale is a trap-setter, not a knife-wielder. No doubt Clove will know better how to use one.

If she and Gale are not willing to throw that knife, I'm the only one with a range weapon.

I reach behind my head for an arrow and position it to aim at her. She doesn't flinch.

"You're terrible, aren't you?" she spits.

It doesn't affect me much. As if that isn't something I don't already know.

"But so am I," she admits, and there's no remorse behind the statement. "If we win together, it's over, and you never have to see me again."

"Your death kind of gives me the same result," I point out, not entirely sure why I'm having this conversation. And I know how heartless I sound, but she sounds heartless, too.

"With him," she nudges her head in Gale's direction, and his jaw tightens, "you tromp on back to your home district pretending you're the best friends you always were, but you know something will change. This arena, these Games, will have changed you. If you win, you should be rich and happy and content and famous. You don't need him to dampen that. You don't need a relationship gone sour that the public will force you to prolong to fulfill their petty fantasies."

I wonder for a moment why she's barking all this at me instead of Gale. One furtive glance in his direction, one look at his determined face eying Clove with no doubt that she _will _die, tells me that Clove has picked up on what I probably knew already: Gale is too loyal to me.

I have been singled out as the disloyal one, the one most likely to betray.

And why wouldn't I be? I abandoned him.

If I had been the trap-setter, and Gale had befriended a tribute who reminded him painfully of one of siblings, and this friend walked into a trap, Gale would've understood and it wouldn't have been an issue.

But maybe he just doesn't love his siblings like I love Prim.

_Prim._

It's not determination to prove that I am not the disloyal one that urges me to release my arrow.

Prim doesn't only care about me. She cares about Gale, too.

I didn't event think to ask him if on that day when he bestowed me with the mockingjay pin Prim had come to visit him. Maybe because it was too obvious. Of course she had. She'd visit me first, of course. We're sisters. But she cares about Gale as well.

How would Prim feel, how would Prim even look at me, if I saw an opportunity to bring Gale home and didn't take it? Why would I take away someone Prim loves just so I wouldn't have to deal with our issues and the Capitol's input into our lives and how we feel?

The thought doesn't even reach coherence. I barely understand it, barely can put it into words. The most notable thing I understand are the words _Prim _and _Gale_ floating around in my mind.

And I release the arrow.

I don't even take time to perfect my aim before I release it, but the arrow still comes directly to the center of Clove's chest.

A breathy sound escapes her throat upon impact, but her eyes don't widen and her brows don't lift.

She isn't surprised.

As she begins to fall backwards and over the edge of the Cornucopia, I remember the moment of remorse I saw in her. It feels like eons ago. She's more than just brute force and violence and strategy. But she is also more than remorse and regret and feeling.

She is a human being.

We all are.

Or rather, we all _were_.

Clove topples over the edge of Cornucopia, and the mutts have at whatever is left of her in that body, the vast darkness, thankfully, obscuring it from my sight.

A cannon fires.

Gale and I.

We are the victors.

The daylight of the arena returns as abruptly as it left. The mutts give riotous whimpers, and then scatter, going in separate direction in attempt to avoid the lights. Nothing comes for Clove's body. I suppose there isn't one left.

Happiness doesn't well up inside me, and I'm not surprised. Relief, though, blooms in my gut and warms my entire body. I'm still holding the bow in the ready position, and my hands fall limp at my side. The bow falls, clattering against the metal and then sliding to the ground.

Gale envelops me in a hug, dropping his knife. I keep my hands at my sides, my limp muscles not immediately recollecting the simple, non-violent task of an embrace. Once it comes back to me, I lift my arms and tighten them around Gale's waist.

"We did it, Catnip," I hear him whisper in my ear.

I want to agree. I want to celebrate. I want picture Prim's smiling face waiting to greet me. But something keeps me from it.

"Then why haven't they come for us?" I whisper back.

A static-y squeak, like a speaker just coming on.

I slowly pull myself away from Gale, my breath catching in my throat.

"Attention, tributes," Seneca booms into the arena, "we have an announcement."

I've seen Gale angry and upset and happy and furious and pleased and disappointed. Until now, I've never seen him in despair.

"The previous announcement concerning two winners being crowned," Seneca continues, "has been revoked."

Gale's hands are still on my shoulders. I want them off. I don't want them there, reminding me of the relief we felt.

Seneca says no more. No parting words, no good wishes about the odds.

It's not about the odds anymore. It never was.

I feel like I'm back in 12, seeing the second bend in the road.

Except this time, Gale isn't going to emerge from the rain to carry me home.


	36. Sympathy

Neither of us speaks for a long time, a time that stretches into absurdity. The truth weighs us down more and more as the silence stretches on. I shrug my shoulders away from Gale's hands, and then slide down the Cornucopia. Gale follows shortly after, landing next to me with a thump.

We land by the weapons we'd discarded in thinking that this turmoil was over. Gale bends down to pick up his knife, but not even for a moment do I think he's about to use it to kill me. I'm prepared to intervene if he opts to stab himself in the eye or something, but he doesn't. He merely stows the knife in his boot. After, we walk from the Cornucopia.

"Well . . ." Gale tails off.

I don't know what to say either. I'd just come to the terms to the fact that letting him die isn't something I'm prepared to do, for my sake and Prim's. To think I'd let all of us down.

Wait, _no. No. _I'm _still _not letting him die.

"We talked about this, Catnip," Gale says without looking at me. "You're the one of us that lives."

"I never agreed to that," I remind him.

"Well, I'm not letting you die here," he says matter-of-factly. "There seems to not be an alternative."

I thrust my arm out to him suddenly, gripping by the arm, stopping us from walking. "Wait!"

"What is it?"

"Nightlock!"

"Nightlock?"

I drive my hands into my pockets, feeling into the corners.

And I come up empty-handed.

The nightlock must have fallen out by now.

I gaze into the forests. How long can I look for nightlock before the Capitol gets bored and intervenes, picks the winner itself with a round of fireballs? Or realizes what I'm about to do and burns all the nightlock away? Not enough time. _Not enough time_.

I mutter something bitter and nonsensical under my breath, pulling my hands out of my pocket despondently.

In my head, an elaborate plan had been forming. Make them think we were both going to kill ourselves. Give them an ultimatum. Two winners or none at all. No one to parade around the country as a symbol of their generosity. But . . .

No nightlock.

"Never mind."

Gale looks visibly disappointed as he looks at me. I do not like seeing Gale dejected.

Suddenly, he squares his jaw, standing up a bit straighter. I think for a moment that maybe he's developed a plan, but when he doesn't speak, I let it go. Maybe I should stop getting my hopes up.

Gale turns his body so that we stand face-to-face. The way he looks at me, his gaze lingering over my lips, lets me know what he's about to do.

And this time, I let him. I let him kiss me.

He seizes me by the face and pulls my lips roughly to his. What begins as something rough and spur-of-the-moment, becomes something languid and drawn out, something that, in other circumstances, I might enjoy.

I don't care whether or not I'm good at this. I harbor no insecurities that I might normally have in these kind of situations. One of us could die any moment. I am going to have this kiss. They will not take this from me.

It finally hits me, for certain, that I forgive Gale. I was stupid for not forgiving him, for leaving him like I did. We could've had more of these moments, we could've had moments together we will never get back now, but my bitterness ruined that. And maybe I would be mad at myself, but relinquishing a grudge against him leaves me too exhausted to consider manifesting a new one against myself.

Gale pulls me closer to him, and I move my mouth with his.

_We should've done this sooner_, I think to myself. I think that for several emotionally charged reasons: we've been this close for so long, we have limited time left, etc. But I standout reason is, despite the circumstances, this is actually rather nice.

I realize, however, what Gale is trying to do.

We keep this kiss going for a markedly long time, not just because we like how it feels. This is a plea to the Gamemakers. This is a cry for sympathy.

_Look how long we took to do this._

_Look how much hope we had._

_Look how much we . . . love each other._

_Don't take that away from us._

The kiss is to show them that. The kiss is a petition, an imploration.

I can imagine the more emotional viewers in tears right now. Surely someone somewhere is demanding the revoked rule of two winners be restored.

But of course, the viewers are also on the edge of their seat, wondering who it is that will kill. That anticipation could be the death of us.

It's a long time before Gale and I give up. Gale pulls away, keeping his face close to mine. His face is set in a scowl as the silence of the arena bears down upon us.

He tries one more time to appeal to the hearts of the nation.

"I love you," he tells me, his voice a bit shaky. I've never heard his voice shake.

I can imagine the swooning crowds, the tearful green-haired, purple-skinned audiences. But no one comes over the speakers to announce us both the winners. It still isn't enough.

After I say it, I realize it's another appeal to the Gamemakers to let us live, but that's not what I intend it as. It's just something honest that I want him to know.

"I love you, too."

I do love him. I've loved him in several ways, ways I never thought myself capable of. I've loved him like a close friend, I've loved him the way the Haymitch wanted the audience to think I could, and I've loved him bitterly when I felt betrayed by him, like when Rue died. I didn't realize it was just another form of love at the time, but since we've met, I've never stopped loving him.

But apparently, the Gamemakers are not romantics.

No announcements.

No restorations of old rules.

But Gale is smiling. His smile is a sad thing, but he's just so glad that I love him. I've taken for granted how much he loves _me_.

Gale moves back beside me, and he puts a hand on each of my arms, a rather odd position, I think. His gaze fixes determinedly on the forests in front of us.

"Walk with me?" he requests.

"Sure," I reply immediately, though my voice is small.

I'm not sure what he's trying. I'm not even sure he's trying anything. Maybe he legitimately just wishes to walk beside me for whatever time is left.

Because it's decided neither of us is killing the other. The Capitol can choose which of us is a better poster-child.

Gale walks us closer to the forest, hands still planted on my arms.

"Try to walk like me, okay?" he orders. "Exactly like me."

I match my footsteps with his, unsure that this is how sentimentality is supposed to be expressed.

"Where are we going?"

"Just walk," he says, not unkindly, but firmly, wanting no more questions.

We reach the edge of the forest, and I'm about to step in. We don't speak to each other, and Gale keeps his gaze fixed on the ground. I keep my steps in time with his, our feet crunching leaves at almost precisely the same moments.

_Crunch, crunch, crunch._

I wonder how different the world will be without one of us in it.

_Crunch, crunch, crunch._

I imagine myself a body in the ground, or a pile of ashes, and Gale being carted off as a poster-child for the Capitol. I almost laugh at the thought. If they expect Gale to cooperate, they're in for a surprise.

_Crunch, crunch, crunch._

Prim would probably turn to him for comfort. Prim will be fine. Prim would be fine _without_ Gale, even if it would take more time to become so. Prim is strong.

I am satisfied with life. I am satisfied with death.

_Crunch, crunch—_

"_Wait_!" a voice booms over the arena.

Gale tightens his hold on me, stopping me immediately. He exhales heavily, as if having been tuned into a nerve-racking situation I wasn't aware of. I squint at him, confused, not daring to allow the hope inside me to grow an inch more.

The voice over the arena, Seneca's, is nervous and shaky, but resolute. "_We present to you the winners of the seventy-fourth annual Hunger Games: Katniss Everdeen and Gale Hawthorne."_

I don't move an inch, feeling if I did, I'd break the fragile binds holding together this seemingly impossible situation.

_Why? Why now?_

Gale, while definitely pleased, seems much less confused than I am.

Ship sounds resound overhead, and the wind of a lowering ship stirs the leaves around our feet. The leaves scatter and tumble away, revealing the ground beneath.

Revealing the _trap _beneath.

A huge, metal, claw-like brace like the one that Gale set that killed Rue, only bigger, sits in front of us, nearly brushing my toes with how close it is. It's big enough to kill a bear, easily big enough to kill two skinny District 12 kids.

Our steps were in sync so that's we'd step into it at the same time, to give off the impression that we were both going to die.

But the Gamemakers still wanted their winner.

Gale found a way to make us an all-or-nothing deal.

We win.

We win.

Gale and I _win_.


	37. Separation

"I want to see Gale," I demand of one of the guards.

The guard doesn't answer. He doesn't even look at me.

"As the winner of the Hunger Games, I _demand _that I see him," I clarify. Winning should be worth something around here, shouldn't it?

This time he glances my way. And he scoffs. I'm about to start throwing punches, but a hand grip tightly onto arm and starts dragging me away.

A murmured command tumbles into my ear. "Calm down, sweetheart."

It's Haymitch. This is the first time I've seen him since we won.

"I want to see Gale," I repeat, my feet stumbling as he wrenches me forward.

"Yeah, I'm sure you do," he grumbles.

He keeps dragging me along until we reach a balcony. He closes the door behind us before he releases his steely grip.

"Congrats," he says sardonically, a distinct lack of congratulation in his voice. He twirls his finger in the air and monotonously croons, "_Woo_."

"Can you get me to Gale?" I ask him.

"I've pulled enough strings for you two."

"When can I see him?"

"My estimation? Never," he reveals bluntly. He walks past me, leaning onto the edge of the balcony.

I face his back. "That's not fair. He won."

He turns back toward me, his elbows resting on the ledge. "This place doesn't foster fairness, and he won in a way that all but does away with his victory."

"What would that be?"

"He one-upped the Gamemakers," he says. "We can damage the Capitol's luxuries and their food supplies, but damaging their pride? That's gutsy. Nearly stupid. Not to mention your handsome little friend assaulted the medics."

When Gale and I got picked up after winning, a herd of people had come at us trying to pry us away from each other. Gale still had that knife in his boot. He'd been more prepared for victory than I was, which makes sense, since it was his plan. He got that knife out pretty quickly, and a muscular guy who'd been in combat mode for the last several days had a bit of an advantage over a bunch of nurses. Even the guards had a hard time sedating him.

Ever since we'd arrived back at the building we'd waited and trained in, he'd been confined to his room. It seems like forever ago we awaited death here. The rooms look different, though they haven't been slept in by anyone else. Colors themselves look different. If I look in a mirror, which I still haven't gotten around to, I imagine that I would look different, too. Maybe that's because I'm the one who actually changed, my perception changing with me.

"They didn't even take the knife away from him," I recall, "or offer him medical attention. They just threw him in his room." I had gotten medical attention after Gale was taken from me. There's no evidence of a knife wound in my back. Blood loss is Gale's immediate medical concern, but with his wounds patched up, he should recover from that soon enough.

"They didn't take his knife?" Haymitch quirks an eyebrows. "It looks like they're hoping he'll off himself. They only want one of you."

I shake my head. "He wouldn't do that."

"You don't know that," he offers. "Things look bleak for you two."

"Things have always looked bleak for us," I retort, "but we get over it and live our lives."

"Well, get ready for your next episode of living, sweetheart, because—" he stops, his gaze flitting down. He approaches me, and as he does, he glances down at my hand. My fist is clenched around something.

He takes my wrist between two fingers and flips my hand over, palm-up. Obediently, I uncurl my fingers.

The mockingjay pin rests there.

I've been relieved of my arena clothing, and now I wear a simple cotton dress, but I have held onto this pin.

Haymitch chuckles, something almost reverent in the sound.

"Because your interview starts soon."

* * *

><p>Enter Effie. She's squeals with delight upon seeing me, bending at the waist to offer me a hug. However, this delight is quickly replaced with anguish, since I'm so horribly unprepared for an interview. I'd gotten around it the last time. (I'm not all that insulted that she didn't expect a follow-up interview. A lot of the time, I didn't expect one either.)<p>

I have half a mind to try to weasel my way out of this interview as well, but if this is the Victor's interview, then Gale is expected there, too. I'm not depriving myself of this chance to see him alive and well. I know he hasn't killed himself like Haymitch suggested, not after we've just achieved the ability to not get murdered, but I have a nagging feeling that he's in danger.

Who am I kidding? He_ is_ in danger. I am, too, but as far as the Gamemakers are concerned, he's the ringleader.

Effie mentions nothing of the circumstances of our win. She mostly just teaches me how to walk and smile as quickly as she can manage. Her despair at my lack of natural talent is evident.

Hopefully, I end up a somewhat presentable person.

* * *

><p>Enter Cinna.<p>

He greets me with a broad, _genuine_ grin.

"Congrats," he echoes Haymitch's words from before, but it sounds exponentially more sincere from him. It's nice that in this city of deception, there is one genuine person.

"Thank you," I reply just as sincerely.

Cinna doesn't talk about my winning circumstances either, he just asks me to turn for him, expresses that my figure hasn't changed much from the last time, and then brings me a dress. He claims he's been working on it for a while in the event of my return.

He knew, or at least hoped very much, that I would come back.

The thought brings a smile to my face.

The dress seems plain, although pretty and much fancier than any dresses I've worn back in District 12, but Cinna specifically instructs me to spin during the interview.

"Spin?" I raise my eyebrows. "Like, turning?"

"Yes."

"I might fall."

"We can pair it with flat shoes."

He dolls me up, with the help of various other stylists and make-up people. They leave my hair down, and it falls in waves around my shoulders. It's then, in front of one of their mirrors, that I finally see my reflection.

I've lost a considerable amount of baby fat, my face consequently more sallow. There are heavy bags under my eyes, but they're covered up tidily. My shoulders and arms look more muscular, and I'm not the skinny girl from District 12 anymore. I can never be her again, I think.

Effie arrives shortly to escort me to the interview. As I'm leaving, Cinna calls out to me.

"Hey, Katniss!"

He beckons me to him, and trot back to him. "Yes?"

"Tell your friend I congratulate him, too," he says. And he lifts his hand and starts attaching something to my dress just above my chest.

It's Gale's pin. The mockingjay pin. I'd put it down at some point during this whole debacle to pretty me up. He must have recognized it and retrieved it for me.

I smile at him, and even if my smile looks as unconvincing as I think it does, I hope he knows how much it means coming from me. I appreciate his presence here. I really do.

"Thank you."


	38. Interview

I have yet to meet Caesar Flickerman, though I'd seen him on a screen plenty of times. He's a flamboyant, theatrical, but ultimately friendly man, at least on television, though I would know that a person on a screen can be a far cry from a person's true self.

I wait backstage with Effie. There are TVs on the wall that Caesar appears on, and his smile is broad as he addresses the colorful audience. I barely pay attention to his introductions. I'm waiting for Gale.

"Your dress is nice," Effie comments politely. I can tell she actually thinks it's rather dull by her pink-wigged standards.

"Where's Gale?" I ask, forgetting to thank her.

"Haymitch was supposed to fetch him," she replies, thankfully not put off by my lack of cordiality. She's probably used to it at this point. Or maybe she's being kind because she's lying through her whitened teeth.

To her credibility, Haymitch is, in fact, not here. Where else would he be if not collecting the other tribute?

Not tribute. Victor. We are victors. Wow, that's weird.

"Where have you _been_!?" Effie hisses suddenly.

I scowl. I'm about to reply with some puzzled retort, ("_The . . . hunger games, I think_?") but then I realize she isn't speaking to me.

Haymitch and Gale emerge, Gale dressed in a suit and tie adorned haphazardly, and he still wears the same boots from the arena. He doesn't look like he's been hurt. He comes straight at me, and I'm hugging him before I've fully come to terms with how relieved I am.

"You're okay!" I cheer into his shoulder.

"You were nearly late!" Effie chastises.

"They wouldn't let him go!" Haymitch defends. "His dress-up people said they'd been given specific orders about when to release him."

Blearily, I realize Caesar's voice still prattling on. "Please welcome, the winners of the seventy-fourth hunger games!"

They kept Gale so he'd be late, and we wouldn't have time to talk, to catch up, to scheme, to plot. The orders probably came from Snow. I release my arms.

"It's time," I say, not excitedly by any means.

Haymitch opens his mouth quickly, probably to don out some quick last-minute advice.

"Go!" Effie urges, cutting him off. "And try to smile!"

Effie more or less shoves Gale and I out of the backstage area and onto the interview stage. I'm glad Cinna opted for flat shoes, because I feel like I would've fallen otherwise. Instead, I merely stumble, and Gale grabs my hand to steady me.

The crowd, whose applause had already started up loud, became nearly deafening. It's a shock to my ears, and all the woops and hollers become one hollow, dull roar. I can barely hear anything else. Gale gently tugs me forward toward a couch that Caesar has been gesturing toward. We sit beside each other, and Caesar takes a seat in a chair adjacent to us. Gale releases my hand.

The crowd quiets reluctantly, still beaming at us.

"Hello, hello!" Caesar bellows. I see nothing fake in his smile and joviality. He truly doesn't want us to look like fools. "Victors! Two for the price of one! How does it feel?"

"Uh . . . good," I respond elegantly.

The audience erupts as if I've said something terribly funny. My face flushes.

Caesar's laugh is less patronizing. "Isn't that the truth," he accepts and looks to Gale. "And you, young man?"

I look to my left at him, and I'm surprised at what I see. Gale's face makes no attempt at openness or charisma. His jaw is locked and his scowl is apparent.

"I'd feel a lot better, I think, if so many kids hadn't been killed," he replies stonily.

The crowd murmurs uncomfortably. Even Caesar's smile falters. I don't know how to look. Wow, I wish Gale had time to fill me in on what he's pulling right now.

"Ah, yes," Caesar nods, suddenly looking somber. He wore emotions extravagantly, but I feel as if he means every one. "Why don't we take a moment to remember your fallen fellow competitors? Little Rue, for example."

I tighten at the mention. Gale does, too. Out of the corner of my eye, on the large screen set up toward the back of the stage, footage of Rue begins playing itself out silently. I shift my head away from the screens.

"Katniss, how did you feel when you discovered that it was one of Gale's traps that claimed Little Rue's life?" Caesar asks solemnly.

How should I act? Should I act like I love him? Not the deep, multi-faceted, complicated, but ultimately powerful love I do hold for him. Should I act out a whimsical, school-girl, kid-friendly version of love and please everyone following our romance? Would that make the Capitol want to kill us less?

They didn't give us time to make plans. I don't know what to do. So I fall back on something dangerous.

I choose to be myself. I choose honesty.

"I was angry," I reveal, latching onto to the end of a silence that was just getting uncomfortable. "I was really, really angry."

"You certainly seemed that way," Caesar agrees. I don't want to look back and see what the screen is displaying now. "But you overcame that anger and renewed your alliance. What drove you to that?"

I glance over at Gale just in time to see Gale's gaze flitter away. He's still putting up his front of frustration, but he's curious about this.

Again, I choose honesty. It's so refreshing to make that choice.

"I learned . . . I just . . . It's just that . . ." Eek. Honesty isn't always eloquent. Or maybe that's just me. "I figured out that bitterness is really exhausting, especially towards him. I didn't want to go home without him."

An embarrassing chorus of _aww _resounds throughout the audience. I resist the urge to cringe. I notice Gale's scowl give way to a smile, but only for a moment. He doesn't notice me looking.

"Very good," Caesar approves. "Forgiveness is truly a healthy practice. And what about you, Mister Hawthorne?"

"What _about_ me?" Gale snaps. The crowd starts up a murmur at his tone.

"How did you feel when Katniss finally forgave you?" he asks.

He looks over at me, his face softening. My stomach flips under his gaze. It's never done that before.

"Uh . . . good," he says, accidentally echoing me.

I chortle at his sudden loss of bravado. The crowd does as well. Caesar looks relieved.

"Ahh, you two certainly are a match," he comments. "I think I speak for everyone when I say we're so pleased about your opportunity at a life together. Do you have any plans for the future?"

I stiffen. And I expect Gale to do the same, but he answer almost immediately.

"I have something in mind," he replies.

He says it almost sinisterly, but from the dark look in his eye, I can tell he's not talking about any plans with me. I don't entirely know _what_ he's talking about.

"Ooh, keeping it secret, I see," Caesar grins, either oblivious to the ambiguity or choosing to ignore it. "Okay, okay, we can let you lovebirds have your privacy."

I nearly scoff.

"Now, something on our minds," Caesar leans forward as he speaks, "is the final trap at the end of the games. From the looks of it, it seems it was Gale who nearly walked you both into a trap that could've killed you! Was this unintentional?"

Yes! I nearly sigh with relief. This is our chance! If we just make it seem like the trap thing was an honest mistake, that we were just going on a final walk together and enjoying the forest, then what charges could Snow hold against us? I'm about to forgo the honestly I'd just embraced and lie to the nation on Gale's behalf, but Gale speaks before me.

"No," he replies sharply, resolutely, "I knew exactly what I was doing."

I almost shove him off the couch on live television.

Because I know Gale. I _know _he figured out the same thing I did. I _know _he's aware that he just gave up a slim chance we had of keeping him safe.

But maybe he knows there is no safety for us after this.

"Hmm . . ." Caesar strokes his chin. He's smart enough not to commend that sort of behavior. "Very interesting. You both are very interesting. If we recall, I didn't get a chance to speak with either of you before the games began. There were some complications. Let's not bored the audience with that information."

Yeah, whatever.

I catch Cinna's eye. He sits in the audience in the fourth row. When he holds my gaze, he sticks his finger up and twirls it.

That's right. He instructed me to spin.

"Um, Caesar," I say meekly, "since I didn't make it to the interviews last time, do you mind if I take this moment to show you my dress?"

Caesar seems pleasantly surprised that I put forth a request. This confuses me for a moment. Do I come off as soft-spoken?

No, of course not. But Gale's leadership, his severity, is eclipsing me. He is the ringleader. To them, I am merely riding his coattails, and his big show of scowls and crossed arms isn't helping. Gale and I have won, but we're in danger, Gale most specifically. He's considered the leader of the two of us, the one who orchestrated the plan to let us live, to one-up the Capitol, to prove such a thing was possible. He is in danger, and he is putting on this show of defiance for the nation to see. He's further asserting himself as the threat, painting a target on his own back.

Am I merely an accomplice? Did I merely get dragged along for the ride?

"Sure you can show us your lovely dress! I'm sure the audience would enjoy a chance to admire it!"

I stand. I don't really care if the audience thinks I look pretty. Cinna's my friend, and he asked this of me.

I lift my right foot, set it down gently behind me, and then I start to spin. My hair lifts at the ends as my speed picks up, and the ends of my dress lift as well.

And then, my dress begins to burn.

I vaguely recall Cinna's words from earlier, during my first meeting with him that seems so long ago.

_I'm going to set you on fire._

He's done it again, but this fire is not nearly as tame as the one he'd adorned me with during my exposition. This one roars around me without a hint of gentleness. It's fake, and does not burn me, but it awes the attentive crowd. Fire bursts into life at the sleeves, engulfing my arms and shoulders. I welcome it, lifting my arms in the air as I twirl. When I think my head might twist off, I force myself to a stop. It's probably the rush from the spinning, but a new confidence is in me now.

I look down at the dress. The old, plain thing has burned away. My new dress is silver. The same color as the traps in the arena. The mockingjay pin gleams gold against it, complementing the color. Tongues of flames still lick the hemline of the dress.

Snow watches from a balcony high above the awed Capitol crowd. He looks perplexed at the display. I smile at him.

I am not just an accomplice.

I befriended Rue and honored her as she died.

I asserted her as a human child despite the dehumanization of the games.

I put an arrow in the chest of the most skilled knife-wielder I've ever seen.

I found forgiveness and love in an arena of brutality and chaos.

Me. Not Gale.

I am not just an accomplice.

I am a girl on fire.


	39. Killers

Yes, it has been a while. College stuff was a lot of the reason. Thanks for your patience. And during the Catching Fire release, this would've been a nice time to get the updates going. (Speaking of which, I still haven't seen Catching Fire, and depending on how things go, I might not even get to see it while it's in theaters. And it seems that when I mention this to peers, someone's there to jump in about how great it was. Thanks, friends.)

Anyway, at long last…

* * *

><p>The crowd roars with applause. I look over the audience, soaking in their approval, soaking in Snow's lack thereof.<p>

Of course, he doesn't approve. A trap-colored dress. I'm glorifying the thing that confounded him, confounded all of them.

And the mockingjay pin set against it. Another thing the Capitol never planned. Insult to injury, really.

There's a row of seats in the very front row of the audience. They clap loudest of all, whoops and hollers, followed shortly by the row rising to their feet, the rest of the crowd following suit.

I squint at the row for a while, trying to understand what's special about them. There's something familiar, connected, about a chunk of the first row, but I don't recall what that is.

The applause dies down eventually, and the flames on the hemline of my dress fizzle away. The crowd, including the reluctant front row, returns to their seats. A scowl sets on Snow's face. I return to sit beside Gale.

"You looked good out there," he smirks, complimenting me out of the corner of his mouth.

"I think I did, actually," I agree.

I scan the crowd for Cinna, hoping to exchange a smile of gratitude. My eyes dart through the crowds, searching him out, but . . .

I don't see him.

I scan more rapidly, checking every seat around the area I was sure he was located, but he's not there. He's gone. Cinna has disappeared.

No, I realize.

_They took him_.

He designed the dress.

And, now, Cinna was probably. . .

_No_.

I don't finish the thought. I don't want to start crying on national television. Not because I care what the masses think of me, of course, but because what I'm planning to say will probably be more coherent if I'm not crying.

I will strength into my voice, then address Caesar, the audience, and whoever else is listening.

"I'd like to thank my stylist, Cinna. He's a great designer. A great man, really. It's the Capitol's honor to have someone like him around."

Polite applause from the crowd.

He's probably dead now.

I don't think about it.

"Very nice," Caesar comments. "Now, I think it's time for President Snow to crown our pair of Victors!"

Caesar rises. After a moment, Gale and I follow suit. The audience rises in a wave, to honor us or something. Followed by two guards toting golden-leaf crowns, President Snow emerges onto the stage, and the crowd erupts into applause. I notice Gale's hand twitch beside me, his fingers stretching down slightly.

Snow parades left, apparently deciding to crown me first. I bite back demanding where my stylist is. It's not like I don't know.

"Pretty pin," Snow comments quietly to me.

"Nice crowns," I retort. "Did you have two of them ready, or did you have to scramble for a second one?"

Snow seems nonplussed at this. He fixes me with a glare, and then lifts the crown to top my head. Another round of cheers from the audience.

Except for that familiar first row. They clap, but not nearly as sincerely.

Snow moves to Gale and his twitching hand. The look Gale fixes him with is cold and hard, but, unexpectedly . . . nervous?

Snow's eyes shift down to Gale's tense hand, and then down to his shoes.

"Arena boots?" Snow notes, seeing the hurriedly polished boots he'd kept on from the games.

Gale doesn't answer. His fist clenches.

"Mind if I take a closer look?" Snow asks.

I'm missing something. I'm definitely missing something here.

Snow beckons to the guard who still carries Gale's crown on a pillow. He hands the cushion over to Caesar, and then bends down to Gale's right boot.

"Other one," Snow corrects.

Gale looks dejected. He winches a moment later, as the guard wrenches a knife from Gale's boot.

Of course.

_Gale bends down to pick up his knife, but not even for a moment do I think he's about to use it to kill me. I'm prepared to intervene if he opts to stab himself in the eye or something, but he doesn't. He merely stows knife in his boot. After the knife is sheathed, we walk from the Cornucopia._

He'd taken the knife from the arena. He . . .

He was planning to kill Snow with it.

And Snow figured it out.


	40. Ashes

Nothing momentous happens for about three seconds, except maybe a terrible swelling of inconvenient anxiety. Then, I feel Gale's hand in mine. I don't know who reached out first, but before I can process that, we're both running, stomping toward the black curtain leading backstage.

I expect gunshots. It seems appropriate. But Snow lets us run, and I hear the thick _fwip_! of screens powering off as the signals disconnect.

We burst backstage, almost ramming straight into Haymitch. He looks furious, his gaze pinned on Gale.

"Of all the idiots I've met," he snarls, "I consider it astounding that your one of the only ones still living to tell about it."

Gale and I are on a bit of tight schedule, so we attempt to barrel past Haymitch's lecture, but he grabs Gale by the shirt collar before he gets too far.

"Back the way you came, two halls down, third door on the right," Haymitch murmurs gruffly, then shoves Gale roughly away from him, towards his directions. Gale stumbles for a moment, but I drag him forward, having nothing much to go on except Haymitch's direction.

I hear chaos in the audience. Some of them realize an assassination attempt was narrowly avoided, but others are yelling in confusion, complaining about the interruption. Caesar bellows at them to calm down, and soon, in a microphone-aided reverberation, Snow assures them the festivities aren't over.

Which isn't a good sign.

But the crowd still doesn't settle.

"Everyone take your seats!" Snow requests benignly. I'm hearing him over speakers now, scattered liberally throughout the building, sometimes accompanied by small screen displaying the events. An audience packed with unrest. The first row whose familiarity I couldn't put my finger on seems particularly perturbed.

We pound down the hallway uninterrupted, reaching the door Haymitch led us to, mercifully unlocked. I hope to find an arsenal inside, but instead, much to my immediate discontent, we find a maintenance room.

There's a broom nestled in one corner, various bleaches and dyes and cleaners resting on the shelves, rags folded next to them, a metal box that does electrical things I don't understand screwed to the wall.

"What are we supposed to do with this?" Gale pants, wiped from the running.

I reach for the door, not wanting to dwell on this for too long if it's the wrong room or just generally useless, but my finger nudges something as I reach for the doorknob. There's a keyhole on the outside, but on the inside, a heavy, twistable lock.

"It can lock from the inside," I realize. _My_ room hadn't done that. They wouldn't put a tribute in a door that could lock at their will. A second later, I'm shoving Gale inside, pulling the door shut quietly behind us, thrusting us into darkness. I twist the lock until it clicks, and then tug a pin out of my hair and stick it into the keyhole in attempt to jam it. I have no evidence that that actually accomplishes anything, but it helps me feel better.

"This buys us time, then," Gale sighs. In the dim lighting, I faintly see him move to the wall, probably endeavoring to lean against it with fatigue, but I grab him by the shirt and pull him toward me.

"What were you thinking?!" I exclaim in a shrill whisper, keeping my voice low in case someone with ill intent walked by the door.

Gale immediately knows to what I'm referring. Not that he'd need many hints. "I was thinking that Snow's a tyrant."

"So you were going to kill him on national television? You didn't see a single flaw in your plan?"

"What choice did I have?!" He's struggling to keep his voice low.

"Lying low!" I suggest, and it's clear in my voice that I'm also struggling. "We had won the Games, Gale! Both of us! You ruined everything! We could've gone home!"

"And then all of this would probably happen again in a year to another batch of kids," Gale says intently, getting closer to my face to stress how dire this is to him. "And who knows when it would end? I was in a position to do something, and I tried. What kind of man would I be if I didn't try?"

"You're not a _man_! You're a _kid_!"

"You don't seriously still believe that, do you?" Gale shakes his head. "Besides, it doesn't matter what I am. We're in a position to change things."

"Change _what_, Gale?" I throw my arms out, frustrated. "What did you think a dead President would accomplish? Would every cruel and unsavory thing in the world just flicker away?"

"Don't patronize me," he scowls. "I know things don't work that way. But it would be a start, wouldn't it?"

"Maybe," I concede, "or maybe it'd just be another dead body on your hands."

Gale goes rigid once he processes what I said. Once I process it, I go limp, frustration shoving itself into the walls of my head to make room for regret.

"That was mean," I admit. "I'm sorry."

"I want to make a difference, Katniss," Gale continues to defend himself, looking away from me.

"I know you do, but seventy-four years of tributes haven't done much of that so far," I remind him.

"None of them were us," he says. His gaze slants toward me. "None of them had a chance to _be_ us."

"And look where that's gotten us!" I gesture around us in the near-darkness. "Locked in a closet waiting for someone to come find us, and probably kill us."

"Haymitch knows where we are," Gale suggests. "Maybe he'll find us first."

"And then what?" I throw my hands up again, just so he's quite certain of his ridiculousness.

"I didn't exactly plan this out."

"That doesn't surprise me."

Gale sighs at me, and then shuffles back to the wall he'd endeavored to earlier. He fulfills his previous plot of leaning against it, then slides down until he's in a sitting position, one leg outstretched, an arm resting on the knee of another one. Still nonplussed, but also in a closet in the dark, I move to slide down the wall beside him.

"It wasn't going to work," I remind him pointedly.

"Clearly, considering it didn't."

"You're too emotional about these things," I tell him.

"As opposed to you." He doesn't say it hurtfully. It's just an observation. I am as fiery and emotional as he is, but it's painted all over his surface. With me, it burns beneath my skin.

Girl on fire.

Or maybe he's the one on fire, and I'm just ashes, burned for too long, lacking what it takes to keep blazing.

But then, I hear gunshots.

The Capitol is firing on the unsettled crowd.

I am not finished burning.


	41. Happy

It doesn't take long for Gale and me to get sick of the closet. We wait for whatever comes next, sitting on the floor, backs pressed against the wall. Gale loosens his tie before taking it off entirely and flinging it across the small space. He pulls at his collar, undoing the first button of his shirt. It's getting stuffy in here. The waiting bothers us. I thought we were done waiting for people to kill us.

A few times, boots slam into the ground outside the door, accompanied by shouting and confusion. The voices don't sound friendly, but sooner or later, they fade.

Some of the voices don't shout for us. They shout other names.

We're not the only ones fighting anymore.

Oh, no. What have we started?

After several moments of silence outside the door, Gale speaks. "I could have picked a more opportune time to try to kill the president. That's not the best outfit for running in."

I glance down at the trap-silver thing Cinna adorned me with. When it burnt up, the hemline shifted to just above my knees, leaving _some _room for running.

"Could be worse," I shrug.

Gale chortles. "I feel like we say that a lot," he ponders. "It's almost as if we're positive people or something."

I shift my back against the wall. "Who says we're not?" I reply. "We've certainly displayed a lot of hope these past few days."

"We've helped give people a lot of hope," Gale contemplates. "A lot of things have happened that people thought shouldn't. Or couldn't."

"Like what?"

"Two people as close as us entering the Games together. One of them volunteering. Two District 12 kids, no less. Both of them getting a chance to win. Having that taken away from them. Both of them actually winning. Both of them falling in . . ." He trails off, as if stuffing the words back down his throat.

"What?" I prompt.

"Never mind."

"If you think you're being enigmatic, stop kidding yourself. There aren't many ways you could finish that sentence," I point out.

If I didn't know better, I'd think I see Gale blushing. "I could have said 'Both of them falling into an inconvenient situation in which they have to flee the president in attempt to not get their arms chopped off or something.'"

"You could have," I admit, humoring him.

"Yeah, but I wasn't going to," Gale admits, tipping his head back against the wall.

"Wow. I am shocked. I can hardly contain my disbelief."

"Save it," Gale smirks. "Look, Catnip, it's no secret that I'm in love with you."

He's more or less admitted this already, after we kissed in attempt to win over the Gamemakers. But my heart clenches much more notably this time.

I knew Gale meant it back in the arena, but there was still the slight chance that he didn't, that it was a show for the Games, or that maybe he only thought he meant it because of the situation.

And this is a still a near-death predicament, but it doesn't feel the same. Things are calm, or at least, calm in relation to the chaos we'd been subjected to recently. Stashed away in this closet, for the first time in a while, we feel like no one watches us. There are no firebombs, no murderous children, no audience to impress, no Capitol to convince. One of us having feelings for the other doesn't get us any strategic advantages here.

And even still, he loves me.

And, I know it with a comforting certainty, that…

"I'm in love with you, too."

Gale doesn't react outwardly for a few moments. He just sits there with his arm resting on his knee, idly fidgeting with his fingers, head tilted up to the ceiling. I count two slow breaths before he finally does something I consider a response.

He grins.

And then he laughs.

And then he kisses me.

He lifts his head off the wall, reaching to cup my face with his hand. When his lips press into my mine, his smile reaches them as well, and my grin echoes his, because despite everything, I am happy. This is the happiest thing to happen to me in a while. I slide my hand to the back of his neck, pulling him closer to me, and he gladly obliges.

I don't know how long I'm smiling against his smile, but it makes the waiting a lot less agonizing.

The first time someone knocks on the door, we both ignore it.

The second time, I feel Gale straightening, his relaxed muscles tightening.

The third time, we pull apart, still keeping close to each other. I open my eyes and find his, and the emotions in them nearly tip me over. There's the happiness that this has happened, the dread of what's about to, and about dozen other things that are similarly contradictive.

"Who do you think that is?" Gale whispers, and I can still feel his breath against my cheek as I turn to look at the door.

"People out to kill us wouldn't knock, would they?" I murmur.

Then, the mystery person outside the door speaks. "You have no reason to trust me, I admit," he begins. It's a male voice with a light-hearted tone at the edge of it. "This means I might break in to prove myself trustworthy. Don't freak out, though."

Gale and I scramble back from the door. Three heavy stomps against the door, and finally a _crack! _as the lock gives way. The door flies open, and I can barely make out the figure standing over us in the shadow.

But I recognize him. He sat in the first row during the interview.

But that's not the only place I recognize him from.

It crashes together in my head why the first row seemed so familiar to me. I _had _seen many of those people before. They'd be familiar to many viewers. They were Victors. Those who had won the Hunger Games before.

"Finnick Odair," the figure introduces himself. "I'm here to help you. And myself. But also you."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Thank you so much for still sticking with this. Thank you thank you thank yoooou.**


	42. Together

The main thing I can remember about Finnick Odair is that he's quite pretty. And even if I didn't remember that, he's certainly standing around reminding me. He's dressed formally for viewing the interviews, but an unneeded amount of chest is still exposed. There's a bag slung over one of his shoulders. I quickly rummage my mind for more information about him, but somehow, I don't think remembering exactly how he overcame an arena full of bloodshed is going to encourage me to trust him.

He helps me. "Haymitch sent me this direction," he reveals. "Come on, before someone less charming finds you."

He holds out a hand to me. I give Gale a look, and he nods. It's not like we have many other options.

I take Finnick's hand and he pulls me to my feet with ease. A moment later, he helps Gale up. Gale brushes himself off as he asks, "Do you have a plan?"

"Evade capture and kill Snow," Finnick explains briefly.

"Kill Snow?" I echo in disbelief. "Because that worked out so well the first time?"

"Yeah, it didn't work the first time," Finnick agrees. "Now, there's no way out of this for you two without finishing that mission."

"That's not possible," I shake my head.

"You're standing here as the first dual winners of the Hunger Games, hailing from District 12, having hidden in a closet for the past half hour to escape slaughter, and you're telling me what isn't possible?"

Gale lifts his eyebrows, as if Finnick actually has a point.

"Gale . . ."

"Catnip, what else are we gonna do? Wait for someone to kill us? I'm done with that."

"We've been over why killing Snow is a bad idea," I remind him.

"It's the only idea I can conceive that doesn't end up with you two being killed or maimed," Finnick tells us.

I regard him suspiciously. "Why do you care?"

"Fresh from the Games, I suppose you don't expect much in the way of human decency," he says. "Don't worry. I benefit from Snow's death, too."

"You're a Victor," Gale points out. "Aren't you living it up right now?"

Finnick continues smirking, but I think I see a flash of something bleak and dark in his eyes. The upturned corner of his mouth twitches, and I can hear something almost sinister in his voice when he speaks again. "You've got a lot to learn about being a Victor, kid."

Gale and I exchange disturbed expressions. I don't want to either of us learn more about being a Victor.

"So, you in, or what?" Finnick prompts. He slides the bag off his shoulders and from it produces something I'm surprised I'm so relieved to see.

"A bow and arrow?" I gasp, reaching for them without thinking.

"It's all Johanna could find on short notice," Finnick apologizes. "Someone should have told me we were revolting in advance. Just the one arrow, so use it wisely. When Snow's directly in front of you, for instance." He turns to Gale. "Johanna didn't find any traps in the inventory, but you perform decently with a knife, don't you?"

"I guess." Gale takes a large hunting knife from him. "Now what?"

"Now, we track down Sn—"

"_Finnick!_"

Finnick's face pales immediately as a voice shrills from the hall. He loses all of his lighthearted playfulness, and I feel like he's no longer aware Gale and I are there. He drops his bag of weapons and spins on his heel, sprinting out of the closet. Gale and I trail after him, stopping just outside the closet door.

A woman trots up to him, and he takes her up in his arms. I can only see his back, but relief is clear in the way his muscles sag over the woman.

"Annie, I told you to stay with Mags," Finnick chastises lightly.

Annie pulls away from him, focusing on his eyes. She shakes her head. "Mags . . ."

Finnick hardens. "They got Mags?"

Annie's eyes well up with tears. Finnick pulls her into his shoulder again. I grow uncomfortable, thinking she's about to start sobbing or something, but she keeps such an outburst down. Her gaze eventually rises to meet my curious one.

"Who are they?" she asks Finnick.

Finnick turns to face us, keeping one arm looped around Annie's waist. "These are the most recent winners, Katniss and Gale. They're going to help us kill Snow."

Annie seems to struggle to focus on us. It's like she's trying to see us through a curtain, but there's only air between us, like she's fighting not to glaze over.

"Is she okay?" I ask.

"As okay as she's been in awhile," Finnick explains. "Don't let that make you think she's incompetent, though."

"Of course not," Gale says. When I look at him curiously, he explains, "She's a Victor, too. She won the year the arena flooded."

Annie doesn't respond to being mentioned. She doesn't seem to hear.

"And you two are together?" I ask.

"That surprises you?"

"I just . . . You always came off as . . . you know, flirtatious. With lots of people."

Finnick smiles sadly. "The pretending doesn't stop when the Games do. Or the interviews. That's the life of a Victor. Unless, of course, we kill Snow."

This seems to jolt Annie out of something. "Finnick!"

"What? What is it?" he asks softly.

"We should not kill Snow."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: A startling influx of reviews encouraged me to get this chapter out sooner. I mean, I know it wasn't that quick, and that chapter is rather short but . . . what I'm saying is thanks for the reviews. A lot.**


	43. Sides

Finnick doesn't seem to think that this idea is as ridiculous as it is. He doesn't patronize Annie. His tone is more comforting than anything.

"Yes we do, Annie. You know that."

She shakes her head, adamant. "If we kill him, aren't we just like him? Killing to get our way? To keep people against us scared?"

"No one's scared of us yet," Gale cuts in. "Especially not Snow."

"But…" she trails off, unable to express how vital this is to her.

"Annie," FInnick grabs her by the shoulders, "I understand. And maybe you're right. But we're still going to kill him. No matter what you say. That's just how it has to be."

"It's not how it has to be," she replies without looking at him. "It's how we're making it. Us, Snow, the Capitol…"

Finnick looks pained. "Yeah, we're part of a system. We're just playing our part."

Annie doesn't say anything more about it. Finnick looks at her, seeming both confident and conflicted all at once. I decide to speak up before his conflict stretches further.

"We should go."

Finnick takes his hands off of Annie's shoulder. "Right. Follow me."

"No," I tell him. "Follow me." I brush past him, my bow lifted. He looks amused at my gall and takes up step behind me, beckoning Annie to stay close. Gale takes up the rear.

I choose to take the lead because I think I know where Snow is. He watched the Hunger Games closely. He probably hardly ever left whatever lavishly comfortable seat he watched the Games from. Now, a bloodbath ensues in the Interview room, so of course he'd want to see it. He'd cut the cameras to not broadcast what was happening to the Capitol, so he couldn't be viewing from somewhere else. He's near the interview set somewhere, probably in some dark corner of it.

I retrace Gale and I's steps, everyone keeping their weapons at the ready. Even Annie keeps a tiny knife poised in her fingers. She may be idealistic, but she's not suicidal.

We reach the corridor outside the interview set. The clamor insidpounds is faint behind the thick walls.

"Now what?" Gale asks, prepared to follow me anywhere.

"Okay," I begin, "first, we split up and-"

I'm cut off by a shrill shriek. A maniacal sound crescendos closer to us, and a figure tackles Finnick to the ground. The axe he'd been wielding falls out of his grasp.

It's a woman with brown spiky hair and a fearsome snarl. She lifts her arms above her head, a trident gripped between her arms. Annie reaches out wordlessly and catches the woman's wrists, stopping the axe from digging into her boyfriend's temple, struggling against the woman's strength.

Gale leaps in to assist. He seizes the woman from behind and forcibly pulls her off of Finnick. He drops the trident as she struggles against his eventually breaks free and falls to the ground beside him.

"Johanna, what is wrong with you?!" Finnick exclaims.

Johanna Mason. Another former victor. But why is she attacking us?

"They're watching us," she says cryptically.

"Yeah, aren't they always?" Finnick shrugs.

"It's a warzone in there. Everyone is killing each other and Snow is making an example of them."

"Yeah, examples are his thing," Finnick rises to his feet, rolls his shoulder. "He's a big fan of particularly violent metaphors."

"But those are Capitol citizens in there," I note. "They're supposed to be ignorant, not killed."

Johanna fixes her gaze on me. I resist the urge to cringe away from it. "The ones who show support for you and your lover are being killed by guards. Some are helping the guards kill them out of fear their lives. It's Team You-Two versus Team Snow."

I process this information. Gale and I have incited a rebellion. In the _Capitol. _I consider vomiting, because it's not the Capitol that has a right to rebel. They complained about two love interests which incidentally led to this bloodbath. But they're not the ones starving, not the ones dying, not the ones suffering under the President's thumb. They're rioting out of fear, not out of injustice. How come they're the ones whose cries get to be addressed?

Finnick also looks troubled, but he regards Johanna with his perplexity.

"Why did you attack me?"

Johanna smirks, something pained behind her expression.

"Why do you think?"

Finnick pales. "You're...you're on Snow's side?"

Johanna opens her mouth to answer, the smirk already hinting what she's about to say, when suddenly, gunshots ring out behind her, too nearby to be in the interview set. There are guards in the corridor.

Johanna scrambles, lunging for the axe Finnick had dropped. In turn, Finnick seizes Johanna's discarded trident. We all nearly fall over each other, bursting back into the interview set where Gale and I had begun.

I'd almost asked why, instead of fighting, the Capitol citizens didn't just leave. It seemed more their style, ignoring a problem rather than fighting for it. But the gunshots answer that for me.

They're not letting anyone leave.

It'd been all too easy for us to find the interview set again. They _wanted _me to return. _Snow _had wanted me to return. If things really were how Johanna had said, this didn't end until either Snow or Gale and I were dead.

We all stumble onto the set, leaving the gunshots behind us. It's dark in the room. They'd cut the lights after they'd cut the cameras. I'm willing my eyes to adjust to the darkness faster when a hollow sound signals a spotlight, and suddenly, my group is surrounded by light.

A have a terrible flashback to the arena, of the circle of light that meant safety from the hounds, but the death of Clove and Foxface and Thresh, where Gale and I thought we would die.

I blink against the brightness, letting my eyes adjust. I see my surroundings now. Since I'd retraced my steps, we'd returned to the stage where we were being interviewed. Someone had spotlighted us. The screens lit up behind me.

Snow's face, ten feet tall, plastered and broadcasted.

"Behold, good people of Panem, Katniss Everdeen and Gale Hawthorne, the incitors of civil discord."

This can't be good.

"They have turned our peoples against each other. They have attempted to kill me in front of all of you. See them now, proud of their discourse. Reveling in the destruction they have incepted."

The screens flicker to picture of the group of us in real time, minus Johanna, who has run off somewhere, wanting no association with us apparently. Finnick drags Annie out of the spotlight and out of the camera shot. I don't fault him for it. He's protecting Annie, and even if he'd stood beside us, this isn't about him.

This is about me, Gale, and Snow.

When I see the cameras cut to us, I feel myself about to speak, and this time, I don't try to stop it.

I know they'll cut away. I yell as much as I can with as much time as they'll allow me.

"PANEM, THIS IS OUR CHANCE SNOW IS KILLING US AND WE'RE STARVING OUR FAMILIES ARE DYING-"

"See how she further wishes to divide this great nation! She spits in the face of our Games, of our people!"

I glower at the cutaway to Snow's face. My words weren't very convincing. Gale wouldn't have been any better. Why couldn't someone really great with words have been dumped in the Games with me?

* * *

><p>Peeta Mellark watches the broadcast from the tiny TV in his parent's bakery. He watches the girl he was so taken with as a child yell into the cameras, desperate for someone to hear her.<p>

She's right. People are dying under Snow's regime. He sees it every day in District 12. But no one is going to listen to her when cut together with Snow's propaganda.

Not in the Capitol, at least. But this is District 12. A District who finally has new Victors. They'd stand behind Katniss and Gale for that. Someone who lived the lives they do, lost the things they'd lost, and beaten the Capitol's system. Katniss and Gale could be their leaders.

But Katniss and Gale aren't here. Snow wouldn't even let Katniss speak to them.

But as for Peeta, however, Snow doesn't even know he exists.


End file.
